


The Spy Who Loved M

by Telanu



Series: Faith and Doubt [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, More angst, Older Woman/Younger Man, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-05 13:15:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 54,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/723704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telanu/pseuds/Telanu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Immediately following the events of "Untouchable," James Bond has to learn—yet again—that everything has a consequence, and that trust can matter more than love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Need You Back

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimers: Not mine, no money. Additionally, part of a chapter of this story takes place during a scene in _Skyfall,_ which means that section of the dialogue perforce comes from the movie's script. The rest is mine. The story's title and chapter headings are (or are adapted) from the Bond canon itself: film titles, theme songs, memorable lines, and so on.
> 
> Thanks to Luthien for the terrific beta and support!

 

 

 

* * *

_Law III: To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.  –Sir Isaac Newton, Principia Mathematica_

 

* * *

  **Chapter One: I Need You Back**

 

Bond has highs and lows like everyone else, but mostly he keeps on an even keel.  Good old British phlegm.  It can't be otherwise in his line of work.  People with mercurial tempers don't last long.  The twist, though, is that his highs tend to be stratospheric, and his lows abysmal. 

The examples are few but indelible.  Losing his parents led him into the misery of a dark tunnel.  Decades later, becoming a double-oh brought the thrill of achievement.  Waking up next to Vesper also woke him to the warmth of joy.  Too soon after, trying to breathe life into her drowned lungs created an ache beyond failure or regret.  For years, he thought that was the lowest of the low, the bottom of the pit.

But tonight, when he exercises the worst possible judgment, he learns that M believes he is capable of violating her.

To make matters worse, she doesn't put a bullet in his brain immediately.

 

* * *

 

He thinks he saves it, saves _them_ , insofar as is possible.  He grovels and pleads—as much as he is able—and at the end of the night, she says they're all right again.  He's got no choice but to believe her. 

He even suffers one secret indignity for her sake.  It'd kill him to admit it.  The best sex he's ever had in his entire life involved kneeling at the feet of a woman who accepted no pleasure from him in return.  He'd nearly lost consciousness from something that wasn't even a fuck.  He'd like to blame it on the aphrodisiac.  That would only be partly true.  What a bloody disaster.

Bond wants to put that night in a box, lock it, and throw it into the ocean.  Let things be as they were before, bleak as they'd seemed at the time.  Since that isn't possible, he decides he will punish whoever had the sick idea to drug them both.  Nobody else is responsible for his actions, but somebody put him in a situation that nearly destroyed everything he's worked to earn.  So somebody's got to pay.

In the meantime, he strives for normalcy as if it's a new Olympic sport.  It takes some doing.  For the first week after the drug, whenever he speaks to M, he looks her steadily in the eye, keeps his hands at his sides, calls her "ma'am" at the end of every sentence, and does, in short, everything but write a contract in blood swearing to behave himself. 

But this isn't normal, of course.  He gradually pulls it together enough to remember that.  Normal, for him, means that he lounges in his chair or puts his hands in his pockets, gives her the once-over when they meet, and doesn't treat her with the deference normally accorded to a queen or a pope.  Normal means that he reminds her he's at Six because he chooses to be—that he's got other options, he could pursue other paths, only he's too loyal to Queen and country to go. 

So he does that instead.  It's shockingly easy to return to.  It's no doubt what she wants.  For her part, she makes it look so simple that it's embarrassing:  when they meet for the first time after not-quite-screwing in her place, she says, "007, have a seat," before sending him to Calais for 48 hours so he can shoot someone.  She's not chilly or distant, or no more than usual.  She's M.  Thus, in spite of everything—

( _in spite of his dreams, her mouth against his as he promises her release, spreading her legs and kissing her other lips until she screams, always on his knees, he fucking loves kneeling for her, it's his natural place and he never even suspected_ )

—Bond dares to be relieved. 

He is not foolish enough to ask her for updates about the drug situation, but he knows she must have her feelers out.  He expects to be packed off to China any day now, with the names of throats that need slitting. 

Then he learns, after two weeks, that M's long since dispatched two agents who were already embedded near Chongqing; that nobody they interrogated knew a single fucking thing; that Lin Chun-Yao's body was found in an oil drum and the trail has gone cold.  The book's been closed for days now.

Bond is incandescent.  Throwing caution to the four winds, he storms into her office and slams the door shut in Tanner's face.  "I could have done it," he snarls.  "You know I'd have found him in time.  Why didn't you send me?"

She purses her lips.  "You know, 007, sometimes I think you believe you are capable of anything."

He's sure there are multiple levels to that statement, but he's in no mood to investigate them all.  "Why, M?"

"You're too close to this.  You can't be objective."

"And you can?"

He can't take the words back, and she gives him a cool glance in return.  On her sofa, she'd perched on his hips and looked down at him like a falcon swooping in for dinner. 

She says, "Agents Wu and Faircliffe have worked the area for years.  They know everyone.  They were more qualified than you, or anyone else, to handle the matter."

"Well, it hasn't been handled," he snaps. 

"Lin is dead," she points out.  "He seems to have chosen a target even more ill-advised than us.  Than MI6," she adds too hastily.  "Our sources indicate it was the work of a local warlord.  Someone else who'd done him wrong.  Very imprudent, to work mischief like that for petty vengeance."  She shrugs and looks down at the briefing on her desk.  "I can't say I'm sorry to see him go."

That's it?  He stares at her without comprehension.  He wants to chase these bastards to the end of the earth until they're pleading for mercy they'll never get.  And that's all she has to say?

"You should have sent me," he says.

"I'm done with this," she replies, not looking up.  "That is my final word on the subject.  It's over.  Let it go.  Now leave my office." 

He thinks about how in her room, that night, she had nearly struck him.  He hadn't been able to see her clearly, but he'd felt the swift movement of air, heard the furious catch in her breath.  She'd stopped herself, probably because she'd already thought of ways to hurt him worse.

Now he nods curtly and says, "Ma'am."  Then he leaves her office.  That's the easy part of her command.  The other will be more difficult, but he's got no choice, so he's going to try.  If he focusses, if he wills it, he can let it go.  He can let her go.  But then again, she wasn't his to start with, no matter what humiliating confessions he made in the darkness.

Strangely, though, after that, M is the one who makes it impossible for him to let go of anything.  She does something that wrecks every illusion of business-as-usual.  It is as abrupt as it is horrifying.

She changes her clothes.

 

* * *

 

Five days after their tiff, Bond comes home to report on his latest adventure in Reykjavik, and finds an old woman behind M's desk.

He tries not to stare, hoping it's a one-off, a single error in sartorial judgment.  But it happens again the next day, and the day after that.

It's impossible not to notice.  M has always dressed professionally, but with a touch of the provocatrix.  Looking down her nose at age, she usually wears perfectly tailored pantsuits, or dresses that nip in at her waist and have a bit of flounce in the skirt.  Plenty of her tops drop low enough to show the line of her cleavage, and anybody who looks can see that her bras must fit her perfectly.  Petite, she compensates by wearing stilettos or heeled boots.  She uses makeup judiciously, making the most of her lips and cheekbones, but letting her blue eyes speak for themselves.  Her short hair sweeps out of her face as if it doesn't dare get in the way.  And her perfume, whatever it is—he's never been able to find out, and suspects she has it specially made—lingers close to her skin, a dark accord of iris and smoke.

Taken all together, her appearance projects power, vigour, and pride.  It is never inappropriate, but it's enough to intrigue.  And if one were already intrigued, enough to fascinate. 

But now she seems to have bought out the gran section of Harrods overnight.  Bond watches with dismay as her necklines rise up to the clavicle.  Her hemlines drop below her knees.  Her blouses and blazers become boxy and shapeless.  Her dresses have no waists.  She swaps the stilettos for comfortable court shoes with sensible heels, and she starts wearing dark tights.  All of a sudden, she only seems to own modest pearl jewellery. 

She does a nude lip now.  She no longer wears the perfume.  Hell, she no longer has a shape.  Bond knows that everything must be expensive and well made, but that makes no difference.  She's trying to buy sexless respectability.  It's a farce.  He can't believe she's stooped to it, and so clumsily at that. 

Whom is she trying to fool?  She can't think he's that stupid.   And what's the point?  Her body aroused him to madness in the dark, and he didn't even see a square inch of it.  Whether she shows a bit of skin or not, beneath the clothes she's still got the same shoulders and breasts and belly and thighs, everything he pressed up against, everything he was denied.  And whether she's wearing French lace knickers or Marks & Sparks polyester, she'll still taste the same.

He supposes he's being childish.  M's got the right to dress herself as she pleases.  If she wants to walk around in couture potato sacks, that's her business.  In the meantime, the world is full of women who love appearing to their best advantage, and are happy to demonstrate this to him as often as he asks them to. 

These days, he insists on fucking them with all the lights on.

 

* * *

  


	2. Do You Expect Me to Talk?

 

"You're going to Cyprus," Tanner says, handing him the brief in the foyer of a nondescript corporate office.  "Passport, documentation, and dossier are all there.  Your flight leaves in three hours."

"A bit slapdash, isn't it?" Bond asks, flipping through the brief, his voice deceptively mild. 

He gets a tight smile in return.  Tanner's gone right off him recently, and while M would never have told him anything about their night together, the man's no fool.  Bond could appreciate that sort of loyalty, if only it weren't so firmly affixed—in this case—to ignorance.  Tanner says, "This man, Christoph Michelakis, is up to his elbows in stink.  The CIA aren't interested, but we are.  Well, obviously.  He seems to be something of a technology packrat.  He's…"

"Why are we interested, and they're not?" Bond asks, still flipping, seeing absolutely nothing of interest at all.  Just another nasty face in a world of nasty faces.

"He's talking to somebody."

"You don't say?  Are you going to tell me who—"

"Somebody inside," Tanner says.  "We don't know who, yet."

Bond blinks at him while he tries to process various, simultaneous emotions: cold readiness for a crisis, outrage that Six is threatened by a traitor, and a surge of…something…that he is being trusted with this.  He recognises it, dimly, as a sort of positive feeling.

"Any special instructions?" he asks.

"We want him alive." 

"I'll bring him to her giftwrapped," Bond says without thinking, looking back down at Michelakis's photo.

Silence.  Bond looks up to see Tanner frowning at him.  "That won't be necessary," he says.  "You'll communicate with me during the course of this mission."

The positive feeling, barely saluted in greeting, wanders away. 

"How exciting," Bond says.  "We'll get to know each other better."

"I already know you as well as I want to, 007," Tanner says.  "Enough to believe you can do the job.  The rest can go hang."  He looks at his watch, managing in that gesture to suggest that Bond can go hang too, once the job's done.  It's got rather more panache than Bond expects of him.  "Your flight now leaves in two hours and fifty-six minutes."

"I can take a hint."  Bond tucks the dossier into one of his props: the briefcase of a respectable businessman who works in this respectable building.  He can't believe anyone with eyes falls for it, but he's learned not to underestimate human stupidity. 

"I don't suppose she wished me luck," he adds, cursing himself when it doesn't come out like it should.

"No.  Good luck," Tanner says, turns, and walks out of the building towards the waiting car.

 

* * *

 

Christoph Michelakis's dossier is a fairly thin affair.  Whoever he is, he's not a major player, just a scrubby freelancer.  Nothing in his background suggests the sort of man who should have a prayer of infiltrating MI6, or indeed, any interest in doing so.  Why call that sort of attention to himself, unprotected as he is? 

The question lulls Bond to sleep for the last two hours of the flight to Cyprus.  A nightmare wakes him up: he scrambles into consciousness, fleeing from M's darkened bedroom, where her body lay rigid and unresponsive beneath him no matter what he did.

The First Class flight attendant is happy to make a martini to his specifications, although she apologises for the lack of lemon peel, and for having to use vermouth instead of Lillet.  She smiles sweetly at him, and says in accented English, "You look as if you need it."

"Bad dreams," he says, taking a long swallow.  It's potable.

"Well, you're awake now," she says, leaning coquettishly on the edge of his seat.  "Let those bad dreams float away on the wind."

"I intend to."  He gives her an appraising look.  "That was nicely put.  Are you a poet?"

She shares her hotel room with a fellow flight attendant, but the other girl is gracious enough to spend the evening out on the town in Nicosia.  Bond passes the time with his new acquaintance—Anastasia, she says, is her name—until midnight, the agreed-upon hour of the roommate's return.

"I wish we'd gone to your place instead," Anastasia sighs, sliding her bare leg over his, tracing a pattern on his chest.  "Unless you're sharing too."

"I never share," he says, and kisses her with a force that surprises him.  "Never."

"No?  Are you married?" she asks.

If the roommate weren't already due back, that question would be enough to get him sliding off the bed and into his pants.  He does, with alacrity.  "Not to a person, no."

She props herself up on her elbow, hair falling down around her shoulders.  Her voice is devoid of everything but innocent curiosity as she says, "To what, then?"

"Work," he replies, putting on his trousers. 

"Ah, well then," she sighs, lying back down.  He can't help ogling her lovely breasts, reddened from his attentions.  "Thank you for being unfaithful with me tonight.  I'm glad to have been—what do you call it?  The other woman?"

He stares at her for a few seconds too long.  Then he says, "Yes.  That's exactly what we call it."

 

* * *

 

Tanner makes contact with him at seven-thirty in the morning, local time.  "Our street contact has flagged Michelakis boarding a bus in Strovolos, bound for Solomos Square.  Keep him from crossing over into North Nicosia.  He's been keeping too close to Ledra Street for comfort lately."

"Wants to talk to the Turks, does he?"

"Apparently.  Do us a favour and find out why.  What have you been doing since you arrived?"

"Making new friends."

Tanner sighs.  "And being discreet, I trust.  She doesn't know your name, does she?"

"She wasn't really the inquisitive type."

"You're consistent, I'll give you that," Tanner says.  Then his voice sounds a little farther away—he must have turned his head—as he says, "Yes, ma'am.  I'll tell him.  007, I repeat for emphasis: you are to bring Michelakis in alive."  A pause.  "007?  Can you hear me?"

Bond says numbly, "It's five-thirty in the morning.  What the hell's she doing in the office?"

"We're working, Bond.  I suggest you follow our example."  Tanner hangs up.

Instead of throwing the phone across the room, Bond dresses in his best scruffy civilian gear—a beat up leather jacket, old shirt and denim trousers, worn workboots—and hits the streets.  A cab takes him to Solomos Square, the chief bus station in the city.  He scouts the perimeter, letting his gaze float over the people, observing without alerting; then he purchases a newspaper and a bottle of beer, sits down on a bench and waits.  About five minutes later, a bus from Strovolos pulls in.

Bond folds up the newspaper, having learned that the Turkish Super Cup looks to be rubbish this year, and drops it into his lap.  He lets the beer bottle dangle from his hand as he leans back against a pillar, and shuts his eyes nearly completely.  He watches from beneath his lashes as the passengers get off the Strovolos bus.  Michelakis is among them.  He has the heavy, aggressive gait of a professional thug, but he takes no notice of the early morning drunk asleep on a bench. 

After that, it's fairly easy to trail him out of the square.  Michelakis does indeed walk towards Ledra Street, but Tanner's fears are not immediately fulfilled, as he diverts onto a smaller avenue into a block of old flats.  From across the street, Bond watches him take a key out of his pocket and disappear through a door.

Palming his Walther, Bond crosses the street and employs the old, top-secret espionage tactic of creeping up to the door and listening through it.  He hears a radio giving the morning news, the noise of one person moving around.  After couple of minutes, he goes down on one knee, gets out his credit card, and picks the lock with it.  It's not exactly what Accounting had in mind. 

Moving through the door soundlessly, he enters a place that is exactly what it appears to be: a flat in a block of other flats, working-class and thoroughly ordinary, unoccupied but for the professional hitman drinking a cup of coffee at his kitchen table.  As he leaps across the distance, knocking Michelakis to the ground before he can even gain his feet, Bond notices a rather stunning woven cloth hanging on the wall.  He thinks, grabbing Michelakis's head and slamming it against a table leg, that he might try picking up something like it in a bazaar while he's here.  He decides, throwing Michelakis back into the chair and tying his hands behind it, that he's not in the mood to bargain today and will pay whatever a vendor asks, no matter how outrageous.

Then he slaps Michelakis across the face.  "Good morning," he says in his best Greek.  "Greetings from MI6."

"What?" Michelakis gasps. 

"You're going on a trip," Bond says.  "All expenses paid.  But before I call my friends who hold our tickets, I was hoping you could answer a couple of questions.  It'll go a lot easier on you if you do." 

"Questions?"  Michelakis shakes his head, his eyes rolling slightly.  Bond hopes, uneasily, that he didn't knock him too hard against the table leg.  "I know nothing.  Is this about Athens?  I had nothing to do with that."

"No, this is nothing to do with Athens," Bond says, "though now you've roused my curiosity."  Michelakis groans.  "This is more to do with London.  Who've you been talking to?"

Michelakis goes pale.  "London?  I don't talk to London."  His eyes dart away.  "I don't even speak English.  You are crazy.  Get out of my house.  I don't know anything, I'm not the one you're looking for."

"Dad?"

Bond's already got his gun out before he realises he's pointing it at a skinny young boy standing in the kitchen doorway.  "Freeze," he snaps.  He needn't have bothered.  The boy, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, just stares at him like a rabbit in headlights. 

"Christoph," Michelakis gasps, "run!"

Oh.  This could be a spanner in the works, couldn't it?  "Don't run, Christoph," Bond suggests with a friendly smile.  "Have a seat." 

Christoph Michelakis _fils_ obeys, possibly because his knees don't look as if they'll support him.  "So," Bond says.  "You're named after your father, yes?"

"Y-y-yes," he manages.

"Don't hurt my boy," Michelakis says.  "My boy has nothing to do with London, or whatever you want to know."  But Christoph Junior's eyes widen at the word 'London.' 

"I'm not so sure of that," Bond says.  He presses the gun to Michelakis's temple, his eyes never leaving the boy's.  "You look as if you don't get out much.  Stay indoors a lot, do you?"  He gives him a half-smile.  "Playing around on computers?"

He forces the boy to gag his father, who sits perfectly still while Bond trains the gun on his son, though he is purple with rage.  Then Bond keeps the gun to Junior's head and follows him to a very messy bedroom, stuffed to the brim with dirty clothes, snack foods, and computer gear.  Bond doesn't understand most of what he's looking at, but Q branch will.  He gets out his mobile and makes the call while Junior stands paralysed in front of him.

"That was fast," Tanner says. 

"Well, I want to get a bit of shopping in."

"You're sure it's only the son who's involved?  Not the father too?"

"I'm not sure of anything of the sort.  But if Christoph Senior has been in secret liaison with someone in Six, then I'll eat my hat." 

"He's not," Junior whispers, wringing his hands.  "Please, my father isn't in this.  I can log on to my computer, I can show you what I've been doing."

And then wipe it clean.  Bond raises his eyebrows.  "I'd rather you wait for a more appreciative audience.  Some fellow enthusiasts who will be very interested in looking at your work."  Junior hides his face in his hands.  "Quite an impressive setup you've got here, who's paid for this lot?"  Michelakis clearly isn't making the sort of money that can buy this.

"I don't know their names.  I mean, not their real ones.  But I'll tell you all I know," Junior babbles, looking back and forth between Bond's phone in one hand and his gun in the other.  "They're very rich.  They, they contacted me through my cousin, who works in China—"

Bond freezes.  "China," he repeats.

"What?" Tanner asks. 

"Yes, China, he's a chemist, in pharmaceuticals, he got a job in, um…" The boy is paper-white with panic as he struggles to remember.  "I forget the name."  Then he gasps.  "No, I remember, I swear, I just can't—Ching Chong?"

"Chongqing," Bond says quietly.

"Yes!  Yes, that's it!"

" _Bond,_ " Tanner says at once, "We've got two local agents on the way.  They will take you and both persons of interest to an airstrip—"

"Pharmaceuticals, you say?" Bond asks Junior.

"—Where Agent T12 will meet you and escort you home.  Are you listening?  Bond?"

"Yes.  They bought me all this.  Are you certain you don't want me to log on and show you…?"

"Bond!"

"This cousin of yours," Bond says.  "The pharmacist—talk a lot, do you?  Is it only computers you work with?  Or do you also help him with deliveries?"

"Delivery?"  Junior's eyelashes flutter and he gulps.  "I don't understand."

"That bloody stuff had to come from somewhere," Bond says.  "Routed through a third party, I should think.  For all the good it did.  Lab traced it straightaway."

"B-bloody stuff?  What stuff?"  

"007," Tanner growls, "you are to stop questioning him now.  Leave him to us."

Bond watches his own hand raise up the Walther until it's pointing right between Junior's eyes.

Junior holds up his hands, which shake violently.  "Please.  I don't know what you're talking about.  I don't deliver anything but information.  Please don't kill me.  Or my father."

"We need him alive!" Tanner snaps. 

"I know that," Bond says, wondering why he can't seem to lower his arm.

Then Tanner says:  "She needs him alive.  She does.  Does that make a difference?"

Bond hisses and staggers backwards, nearly stumbling.  Luckily, Junior's too terrified to take advantage of anything.  He looks as if he's only moments from pissing himself.

"No," Bond rasps.  "I told you, I know that.  I'm not bloody killing anybody, Tanner, all right?"

At this, Junior collapses onto the edge of his mattress with a whimper.  And, true to form, a wet stain appears and spreads at his crotch.

"See that you don't," Tanner says.

"Don't think to play with me like that.  Don't ever try that again."  Bond swallows harshly.  "I'm doing my job.  That's all that concerns you.  And I'd bet you a thousand pounds she'd say the same."

Tanner sounds completely unrepentant when he says, "Whatever works, Bond.  You're lucky she wasn't standing here this time." 

As if Tanner would have dared that in her presence.  "Yes," Bond replies.  "I'm made of luck."  He looks at Junior in disgust.  "Get up.  Let's keep your dad company in the kitchen."

"I d-d-don't know anything about delivery," Junior says.

"Don't worry," Bond says. "I'm sure you'll prove very useful all the same."

 

* * *

 

Bond has no idea what sort of information MI6 suspect Junior of sitting on, but it must be something grand.  They don't waste time throwing him in some local interrogation cell.  Rather, Bond and both Christophs are bundled up in a Jeep and taken to a private airstrip where a chartered flight awaits them.  Junior's computer gear has also been confiscated and the flat has been swept.

As they board the plane, someone else exits it.  Bond recognises Agent 003, Paul Ronson.  They shake hands.  "Nice work," Ronson says.

Bond shrugs.  "It was hardly difficult.  What are you doing here?"

"The usual.  Having a look round.  Clean-up."

He glares.  "I didn't leave a mess."

Ronson looks bemused.  "Never said you did.  Rest is classified.  Good journey home."

Bond's always liked 003—the man certainly doesn't waste words.  Indeed, he rarely wastes complete sentences.  He would probably be impossible to interrogate.  Bond sighs, shakes his hand, and boards the plane, where he is given a Scotch and the Christophs are loaded into the cargo hold, along with the computers. 

Agent T12, a swarthy man of about twenty-five, keeps looking at him nervously.  Plainly his job is to get the notorious 007 back to London without further carnage. 

Bond thinks about saying, _Look, she can trust me to sit quietly on this plane, all right?,_ but suspects T12 wouldn't take it well.  So he passes the time by giving his statement, along with all the details he can remember, knowing he'll have to do it again when he gets home.  T12 spends the whole time rapidly entering the data into a tablet computer.

When Bond has nearly finished his report, the tablet bleeps.  T12 squints at it, taps the screen, and says 'ahh.'  He holds it up so Bond can see that a man's photo has appeared.  "From Mr. Tanner.  This is Stavros Kara."  He nods towards the door of the cargo hold.  "The chemist cousin."

"Where is he?" 

T12 looks at the small type at the bottom of the display.  "Tanner says they're still looking around Chongqing."

"Try the finest local oil drums first."

"I'm sure they will."  T12 gives him a hesitant look.  "Agent 007?  I know some things must always be secret, but I'm not clear on why we care about a Chinese pharmaceutical corporation.   Especially enough to send a double-oh after…" He shrugs helplessly.  "Well, after two men like that."

"What if I told you those are the two most dangerous men in the Eastern hemisphere?"

"I would point out to you that we are flying west," T12 says, "and also, that you're full of shit."

Bond smiles wryly.  "I'm glad your nose works."

"So I don't get to know, do I?"

"Poison," Bond says.  "We're concerned with poison.  It's amazing what you can kill with it.  You can kill something that seemed indestructible."

T12 stares at him.

Bond settles back restlessly into his seat.  "Never question a double-oh, T12.  Now let me have another Scotch.  It's gone past lunchtime."

When they land in London, Tanner calls.  With unwonted generosity, he says that Bond doesn't have to come in until tomorrow, since he's already given such a thorough statement.  He can take the rest of the day off while Intel process what he's given them already, and while the Christophs are interrogated.

"Thanks, Tanner," Bond says.  "I'll do that.  Is M still there?"

"No, she's gone for the rest of the day.  She's at a meeting in Whitehall, likely to run long.  You'll see her tomorrow when you complete your debriefing."

"Cheers.  Tomorrow, then," Bond says, hangs up, and waves at the van as it carts the prisoners off to a holding cell.   

Then he hails a cab and heads straight for Vauxhall.

Bond's usual method of entrance into MI6 is through a secret lift that he activates through a code.  He wears Tom Ford suits and shoes handmade by Crockett & Jones.  Everyone inside knows him from a mile off.  Today, in his shabby clothes, he gets out of the cab one block away and goes round to the south entrance.  This is where the worker bees buzz in and out of the hive: office staff, deliverymen, cleaning and catering. 

He's not in disguise, he's not sneaking about, not really.  After all, when he sees someone he knows, he gives them a nod and a smile, and nobody tries to stop him.  He doesn't have to identify himself.  There's no reason for him not to be here, is there?  Even if certain people aren't expecting him?  Even if he doesn't come in the usual way?

Bond gives a friendly wink to his favourite clerical assistant, the really pretty one, as he gains the inner sanctum.  Once inside, he nearly trips and falls over a trolley piled high with cardboard boxes.

"Watch it, mate," snaps the man who's pushing it. 

Right.  There are some debits to not appearing like a star employee.  But Bond's about to let it go when he notices that one of the cardboard boxes on top of the stack is open.  Over the man's protest, he scowls and peers into the box, reaching inside to pull out a familiar, hideous Royal Doulton figurine: a bulldog wrapped in the Union Jack. 

He can't even count how many times he's made fun of it.  "Where's this lot headed?" he asks, putting it back in the box.  "Only I'm meant to be helping."

"And a bang-up job you're doing too," the man says.  He nods towards another trolley standing by a wall, laden with more boxes.  "Follow me."

Bond follows him, pushing dozens of boxes full of—if his suspicions are correct—some of the most classified material in Britain.  He doubts very much that M has been sacked, and this is her way of removing her effects from the building. 

He doesn't receive as many shocked glances as he might have expected.  That's what not wearing Tom Ford will do for a man.  Bond is both amused and appalled by how easily he slips beneath the notice of people who've known him, or known of him, for years. 

He gets in a lift with his new comrade-in-arms and their trolleys, and goes up three floors.  When he gets out, he immediately sees their destination: the large, open room looking out over the Thames, with floor-to-ceiling windows and glass walls.  Not even the high-tech, one-way glass either, the kind that can double as a computer monitor or touchscreen.  Ordinary, non-bulletproof, two-way glass. 

The space used to function as a sort of lounge area with chairs and tables, useful for official functions and parties, or as a place for people to congregate during breaks and so on.  Now there's an enormous desk sitting smack in the middle of it.

Bond closes his mouth, slaps his palms hard against the handle of the trolley, and then storms back towards the lift.  "Where do you think you're going?" the man snaps.

"I resign," Bond says, and pushes the lift button to go back down the three floors whence he came.

Tanner's not at his desk, so there's nobody to stop Bond from finding M at hers.  Her office has been more or less stripped: it's just her, her old desk, her laptop, and an expression on her face that is outraged, but not surprised.  He slams the door shut behind him.

"Good meeting?" he asks. 

"You've got a cheek," she says, but it is without venom, almost without energy.

"Are you mad?" he demands.

She stands, wearing a baggy black sack that he supposes can pass for a dress.  "I would beg your pardon," she says, "but I think it would be wiser for you to consider your tone, first."

"That office up there.  It's a security nightmare.  Christ, it's like you're moving into a crystal ball.  What's wrong with this one?"  He gestures around at her current interior, nondescript, non-bloody-transparent office.

"Building security is not your job," she says.  "I assure you that the change in my location has been thoroughly cleared."

"Oh.  Well, that's all right, then.  Shall I tell you how easy it was for me to get in today and push around a cart full of your things, when hardly anyone even recognised me?"  He waves up and down his own body so she can get a good look at his Nicosia wear. 

M says tightly, "While I appreciate your concern, 007—no, I don't, actually.  I feel, and shall be, perfectly safe.  Now for God's sake, go home and change those hideous clothes."

"I will if you will," he says, and he can't take the words back or put them in a box.

She clenches her jaw and stares at him.

Might as well go for broke.  "Love the new office," he says.  "But not as much as I love the new wardrobe."

Now she speaks: "Get out."

"What the hell's going on?" Bond asks, running a hand through his hair as light begins to dawn.  "All this…and the mess with Chongqing…and Tanner said Michelakis was talking to someone inside Six but we don't know who.  I thought it was to do with—" He stops.  Her eyes widen.  So blue.  "I thought—"

"That it was to do with you," she spits.  "Of course.  Of course it must always be to do with you."

"That it was to do _with the drug,_ but there's more to it than that, isn't there?"

"Is there?" she says.  "007, I really don't believe you've even bothered to ask why."

"Why what?"

"Why you!" she explodes, slapping her palm down on her desk.  "Why they drugged you as well as me.  Tanner was in that room, two commission chairmen were in that room, hell, even the PM was slated to come, and it was your drink somebody spiked.  And you haven't even asked why.  Because, as far as you're concerned, of course it's you, it's always you, why _shouldn't_ affairs revolve around bloody _you!_   You haven't even questioned—"

"Fine," Bond says, placing his hands on her desk, leaning forward.  "So why me?"

She blinks rapidly, and her mouth opens and closes. 

"You don't know, do you?"

"I have my suspicions," she says, "that I elect not to share."

"Why the hell not, if they're to do with me?"

"Trust me," she says.  "If that's what you want from me so desperately, then that's what you must give me in return, Bond."

She'd called him James that night, nothing but James, and he knows why, he knows why perfectly well.  Because he couldn't be 007 in her bedroom.  He couldn't even be Bond.  And now she's moving to an office with walls made of glass. 

In the darkness, she'd asked if he'd bend her over her desk, her voice hoarse with need, and that hadn't been his idea.

She raises her hand to push an errant lock of hair out of her face.  Her hair used to be cut and styled with perfect precision.  Now it's going shaggy, limp, just sitting on her head.  But when she touches it, he notices something: she's varnished her nails.  They're a deep, dark red.  He's never known her to do that before.

And in spite of all the rest, his mouth goes dry and he pulses between his legs.  Those fingers had been buried to the hilt inside her, and then he'd licked them clean before coming his brains out.  No act before or since has struck him as so purely sexual or raw. 

He swallows.  "I like the manicure."

"007.  My agents do not comment on my personal appearance.  You have done so twice now.  I've no idea why you think you are entitled to do this, but let me disabuse you: you are not."  He opens his  mouth.  She says harshly, "You want my trust?  You've regained it.  Just.  If you want to keep it, for Christ's sake, shut up." 

Then she adds, sounding very tired all of a sudden, "I resent having to say this, Bond.  I resent it very much.  The book is closed on that night.  It is closed, and that is all.  You should have known that already."

"I do know," he says.  He inhales deeply.  Of course it's closed.  It has to be, that's the only thing that makes sense.  She has no other choices, and nor does he.  It's time to stop acting like an utter fool. 

He shrugs, puts his hands in his pockets, and repeats, "I know, ma'am.  So change your clothes back if you want to.  If you were ever worried about me."

For an instant, her lower lip trembles, and so does his world—as he wonders, for a horrible moment, if he's going to see M cry.  It does not seem possible that such a thing can ever happen, for any reason.  But she pinches her lips tightly together.

Then, instead of pitching him out, which she would be completely within her rights to do, she says: "I can't.  It was never only about you.  I have to become someone else now, 007.  No doubt, in time, you will see why."

He stares at her.  He wants to say, _What?_ Or, _You don't have to do that._ Or, _I already know who you are._

Instead he shrugs again, and tries to sound indifferent when he says, "Well, I'm still me.  I'm here.  I'll do what you need."

She smiles bitterly.  "I'm very glad to hear it.  I need you to go home, and then come back and debrief me tomorrow.  When I'm settled in."

Settled in the crystal ball.  Bond only nods and says, "Yes, ma'am."  She nods back, dismissing him, and he goes.  This time, he takes the secret lift, glancing at the ordinary lift as he passes it by.  The lift that can take him up three floors to her new office.

To the transparent cage where anyone can see her every movement; where the woman wearing a costume can pretend to all and sundry that she has nothing to hide.

 

* * *

 


	3. The World Is Not Enough

When Bond stops by MI6 the next day—slightly the worse for wear—he learns that he will not be debriefing M alone.  Not by a long shot.  In fact, he is not required to speak at all.  Nor will the debriefing take place in either her old office or her new one.  It takes place in Q branch, eleven people gathered round a table full of Junior's computer gear. 

"It's encrypted to the nines, of course," Q is saying with his usual pedantry.  Bond tries not to sigh audibly when he walks in, both because he knows all this already, and because Q is an incredible bore.  A man in his mid-fifties, he seems somehow to predate the Jurassic. 

"Good of you to join us," Tanner mutters when Bond approaches the table.  M pointedly ignores him altogether. 

"You might have told me it'd be down here," Bond growls.

"You might try checking your emails."

"I never got an—"

"—these security protocols, am I _boring_ you, gentlemen?" Q demands.

For all that he's Chief of Staff, Tanner straightens his shoulders like a schoolboy caught passing a note.  Bond watches M's lips twitch for a moment.

"Not in the least," he says, giving Q a friendly smile.  "I'm sorry I'm late."

There is a moment of exquisite silence while the ten other people in the room attempt to make sense of what they have just heard. 

Q waits, plainly braced for a smirk or sarcastic follow-up that never comes.  Then he says, rather lamely, "Er, right.  As I was saying…"

Bond glances at M, just in time to catch her glaring at him.  He shrugs.  She narrows her eyes and turns back to Q. 

A full hour later, the upshot of it is, they're still digging information out of the Michelakis men, and in the meantime, Q is taking all of Junior's equipment under his personal supervision.  "I've had a quick look and it's fascinating," he says.  "A level of sophistication I would not have expected from someone of his age, and without any apparent training.  I'd quite like to have a word with him."

"I'm of a mind to let you," M says.

"He's not talking?" Q asks.

"He's talking too much," M replies, rolling her eyes.  "He's answering questions we haven't even asked.  I'm tempted to think it's a particularly cunning evasive technique, but he honestly seems to think we want to know about every single conversation he's ever had in his life, in excruciating detail."  Everyone laughs.  "Perhaps you could get more sense out of him."

"I don't usually get to interrogate anyone," Q says, appearing almost enthused.  "Might I have twenty-four hours to go through…" He gestures at the pile.

M looks unhappy.  "It can't be done more quickly?"

"I will try, of course," Q says, in martyred tones he has long since perfected. 

As the meeting disperses, Bond ducks away from Tanner and stops M before she can escape.  "What's going on with the boy?  What do you mean, he's talking too much?"

"You found him, 007.  Presumably you have seen first-hand how well he responds to pressure."

"He's capable of answering direct questions."

M pinches her nose.  "Would you like to ask them?  Do you even know what they are?  No?  That's why I'm turning him over to Q.  Once he's had a look through that lot, we'll have a better idea of what we actually need to know."

Bond looks restlessly back at the table, where Q and his minions are carefully sorting the goods and loading them onto a trolley.  "What's he found already?"

"Oh, scads of interesting things.  He itemised them all beautifully.  During the first ten minutes of the meeting.  There was also coffee.  Then we arranged for world peace and organised a space exploration programme.  Pity you missed it."

"I didn't get the email."  He raises an eyebrow.  "Coffee, you say?"

Her eyes twinkle, but then she turns away.  It's as much as she's ever given him in all the time they've known one another.

Perhaps, he thinks.  Perhaps they will be all right after all.  Perhaps.

The moment was delicate, fragile, almost hopeful.  It doesn't deserve the treatment he gives it that night, when he goes home and has the brutal wank he's waited for all day, imagining that after she twinkled at him, he followed her back up to her new glass office and had her.  Just as she wants him to. 

He knows how he'd do it, of course.  He'd hike up that ridiculous granny skirt until its length doesn't matter any more.  Tear open her frowsy blouse with his teeth because his hands are busy elsewhere, getting her ready before grabbing her thighs and holding her open, and she orders him to touch her until she finishes, but he tells her that she'll come from his cock or she won't come at all.  They'd steam up those bloody walls and windows too, for good measure. 

It's not where his own fantasies have traditionally run, but why not, if that's what does it for her…him taking her over her desk…

Then, at the decisive moment, he remembers how she'd whispered: " _Or is it the other way round?"_

_Jesus!_   He shoots all over his hand, all over his chest, nearly up to his chin, and then he collapses against the bed, gasping from shock as much as pleasure.  God.  He'd nearly forgotten she said that. 

Warm, satiated, he can grin and consider it: M, giving it to him from behind.  She'd need a stepladder.  This marks the first time he's felt genuinely cheerful for weeks, and he wipes himself clean and goes to sleep.  He doesn't remember his dreams when he wakes.

 

* * *

 

Eight a.m.  He's just starting on his first espresso when he gets the alert on his phone: _Report HQ immediately._   It's from Tanner.  Bond raises his eyebrows.  But the message from M, arriving one minute later, is what gets him out the door while the cup goes cold on the table: _The boy is dead._

By the time he sees M, he has many additional reasons to hate the new office.  The logistics are terrible, the traffic flow is fucked, too many people rush around and bump into each other.  He grits his teeth and shoulders his way through to her side. 

She sits at her desk, her face pale with fury, while Tanner and a tall young girl—Bond recognises her as one of Q's many assistants—hover at her shoulders.  All of them are looking at something on a tablet computer.

"What happened?" he demands.  "The boy's dead?  How?"

M, scowling at the tablet and apparently too angry to speak, waves at Tanner.  Tanner glances at the girl from Q branch before turning a grim look on Bond.  "Poison," he says.  "The guards found him at seven-thirty this morning when they brought him breakfast."

"You fed him?" Bond asks incredulously, watching while the girl touches the tablet.  It looks like she's poking a keypad, trying to work out a code. 

"He'd been cooperating," Tanner reminds him.  "He agreed immediately to be questioned by Q.  Q got there about four in the morning, and when he left an hour later, by all reports the boy was fine."

"Four this morning?  I thought he said he'd need more time to go through all the equipment."

"He took it all with him," the girl says, looking up from the tablet at last.  M does not.  "Said he needed Christoph's help to make sense of it all."

"Christoph?" M snaps.  "Are we on a first name basis now?"

The girl's cheeks redden.  "Well, we were calling his father 'Michelakis.'  And—and he was so young."

Bond wouldn't have thought that Q branch consisted of a bunch of bleeding hearts, but he's been wrong before.  "Sorry, who are you?" he asks.

"Er, I'm Agent Q3, but, er—" She goes even redder.  "You can call me Lakshmi?"

"Thank you, Q3," he says, firmly but not unkindly.  "I'm 007."

"Oh.  Yes."  She turns back to the tablet.  "Of, of course I know."

"And why are you here?"

"Excuse me?"

"I mean, why are you here, and not Q?" 

Tanner answers for her: "He's down in the lab, still going through all the equipment.  Said that with the death of Michelakis Junior, there wasn't a moment to lose."

"What's this, then?" Bond asks, indicating the tablet on M's desk. 

"Something he said was of the utmost importance."

"And which he implied Agent Q3 would be able to hack instantly for me," M says.  "I'm sure that at any moment, she's going to get around to it, aren't you, Q3?"

Q3's fingers continue to fly over the touchscreen.  She looks absolutely wretched.  "I'm still working, ma'am.  It's not responding to any of the usual codes or combinations."

"Why aren't we letting another computer handle this?" Bond asks, thinking vaguely that a machine could probably eliminate these 'codes and combinations' faster than a human.  Not that this is really his area of expertise.  He can do a decent hack job—well enough to log into M's own computer with her ID and password—but it's hardly his main line of work.

"He said not to hook it up to the network," Q3 mutters.  "Told me specifically to handle it personally. It's my specialty, you see…"

"And your pay grade."  M rubs her hands over her eyes.  "Do you know whom you out-earn?  Teachers.  Policemen.  People who actually—"

Tanner exchanges a resigned look with Bond—possibly the first thing they have agreed on—before he clears his throat and says, "If it's that important, ma'am, I don't see why we shouldn't get Q up here himself to do it.  I'll call."

"Fine," M growls, and Tanner decorously steps out of the office, his mobile held to his ear.  Even though they don't always get on, Bond is pretty sure that  Tanner's pay grade cannot possibly be high enough.  For his part, he's not totally sure why he's here.  But he's reluctant to inquire, for fear that her answer will be, _Now that you mention it, you're right.  Go home._

"How's the father taking it?" he asks. 

"We haven't told him yet."

"Damn it all."  Bond rubs the back of his neck.  "If he thinks Six killed the boy, he'll never tell us anything he knows.  Any ideas who did it?" 

"According to the guards, no one went in or out but Q.  Let's just say I have my doubts about that."  Bond nods.  This is one of those times when it would help to have security cameras—but nine times out of ten, MI6 interrogations are better off leaving no record behind.  "Suicide is a possibility, I suppose."

Bond remembers Junior pissing his pants.  "A slim one, if that."

She glances quickly at him.  "Yes?"

"He wanted to live.  Begged me not to kill him or his father.  He'd only have offed himself if something terrified him even worse than death."  Bond shakes his head.  "Besides, where would he get poison?  Wasn't he searched?"

"Thoroughly."

"And we're positive he was dead by the time the guards arrived.  They couldn't have put it in his food?"

"We're waiting on details from the autopsy, but the immediate report was that he'd been dead for hours.  Doesn't rule out anything they might have done earlier.  Damn it!  When I'm through with them…" She drums her fingernails against the surface of the desk.  Bond notices that she's taken off the red varnish.  "He's been talking to someone inside Six.  I'll plug that leak if it's the last thing I do.  Which it might be, since apparently I am going to die here of old age, waiting for—"

"Ma'am!" Q3 gasps.  "I've unlocked it!" 

She thrusts the tablet practically under M's nose.  M tsks, takes hold of it, and puts it down on the desk while she, Bond, and Q3 all lean over to read the display.  A basic desktop appears, nothing surprising, just a background with flowers all over it and a few icons for standard programs.  They'll have to start picking through the files before they can really find…

Then the desktop vanishes and the screen goes dark.  For a second, Bond thinks that it's gone into some sort of automatic shutdown mode.  But then white letters appear on the screen, jumbled together, spinning around as if wind-tossed before settling into a word: 

_Quisling._

For a moment, all three of them stare down at the word, completely paralysed.  Then Tanner reappears, glaring down at his mobile.  "Q's not answering my calls.  One of his assistants just told me he'd 'stepped out,' but didn't know why." 

"Lock down the building," M rasps.  She rises to her feet, paper-pale.  "Put an alert on Q.  Find him and bring him back."

"Ma'am?  I mean—" Tanner fumbles with his phone again.  "Of course, but what—"

"He's the leak," Bond says, his mind only beginning to grasp the enormity of it.  Q.  The MI6 quartermaster. 

"We don't know that yet," M says, pressing a hand to her forehead. 

"Yes, we do," Bond says.

She swallows.  "Yes.  We do.  Tanner, for God's sake—"

Tanner's already striding back out the door, his free hand clenched into a fist as he barks instructions to building security.  Bond turns to M, expecting to be sent out in immediate pursuit.  Instead, she takes a deep breath and says, her voice steady, "Get down to Q branch.  Take her with you."

"Right," Bond says, and takes Q3 by the elbow, dragging her along behind him towards the nearest lift.  Then he thinks better of it and heads for the stairwell. 

"I don't understand," Q3 gasps as the doorway to the stairwell clangs shut behind them.  "I don't know what's going on.  A leak?  Listen, I don't know about any of this, I'm not a part of this—"

"Then you've got nothing to worry about," Bond says, hustling her along, their voices echoing off the walls.  His phone bleeps in his pocket, and he takes it out with his free hand, to read Tanner's message: all the exits to the building are now locked, and a search for Q is underway.  How long ago, exactly, did Q 'step out'?  If they're talking about five minutes, this could be containable; if they're talking ten, that's less hopeful; any more than that, and the situation becomes very grim indeed.

"Just be ready to tell me everything you know," he continues as they descend the stairs.  "Repeatedly, if need be."

"What do you mean, Q's the leak?  What leak?  This can't be right.  He's…he's _Q._ "

"And therein lies the problem.  Thank you for summing it up so succinctly.  Save your breath, we've three more flights to go.  And get a move on."

Thankfully, she remains silent until they arrive in Q branch, which makes up for it by being abuzz with panic.  The greatest computing minds in Britain, it turns out, are not also the most unflappable. 

"Quiet!" he roars as he strides in, releasing Q3's arm from his grasp.  She stumbles into the group, rubbing her elbow and glaring at him.  Bond looks around, taking a quick headcount.  Seven people.

"I'm Agent 007," he says, though he knows most of them will recognise him on sight.  Notoriety can occasionally be convenient.  "And you need to answer my questions.  Be quiet and speak one at a time.  Who saw Q leave?"  Three hands go up.  "When did he go?"

"Nearly twenty minutes ago, sir," a middle aged man says. 

"Eighteen, to be exact," a bespectacled youth adds.  "What's going on?  Why's the place on lockdown?"

Eighteen.  Bloody hell.  Bond's already ringing Tanner.  "He left eighteen minutes ago," he says when Tanner picks up.

"I know.  Blast!"

"Are you looking at the security footage?"

"Right now, as a matter of fact.  This time of morning, there are so many people going in and out—"

"The security feed?  I can pull that up down here too," the youth volunteers.

Bond points at him.  "You stay right where you are.  Has anything gone missing?" he asks the room at large.  "Especially from Chris—Ju—the boy's equipment?"

"He took one of the laptops with him," the middle aged man says. 

"A laptop?" Bond says.  In his ear, Tanner utters an unaccustomed curse. 

"Yes.  There were two.  He took the Vaio.  Not sure why, it had the least impressive specs of the lot…"

"Before he left, he hooked it up to the mainframe," the bespectacled youth says.  A lock of curly dark hair falls before his eyes, and he blows it out impatiently.  "Said he had to upload something.  He was working on it for perhaps half an hour, and then he said 'ah ha,' and disconnected it, and said he had to go."

"What was on it?" Bond demands. 

The youth shrugs, but a woman jumps in with, "Anything could have been on it!  We need to start checking everything.  Viruses, worms—we could be infected."

"Just what we need," Bond growls.  "Tanner, they're saying we might have been…what, hacked?  Corrupted?"

"All of that," the woman says unhappily.  "Whatever was on that computer is probably in our system."

"Bloody hell," Tanner says.  "There's no help for it.  Tell them to start scanning.  Ah—wait—there he is—"

"Where?"

"On the cameras.  Fifteen minutes ago.  He left through the south entrance with a bunch of service staff."

Bond closes his eyes.  "How clever.  Now what?"

"I'm calling M, that's what."  Tanner hangs up. 

"Right," Bond sighs.  He glares at the room.  "Well, start looking for worms and bugs and whatever else is in there."

They man the battle stations, but even as they do so, the middle aged man says, "Agent 007, I can't believe that this isn't some misunderstanding.  This is Q we're talking about.  He's a patriot.  He'd never do anything like this."

"Would you have thought he'd poison a boy you'd all been calling 'Christoph'?  I'd say this is your day to be surprised."

And then he's more or less stuck cooling his heels while they go to work.  He's got no further instructions, he knows damn-all about what they've got to do to fix things, and Tanner's going to be debriefing M, so there's no point in trying to reach her. 

Then, about ten minutes later, when he's considering slitting his own throat if people give him one more curious-yet-pitying glance, M calls.  "I need you to talk to Michelakis," she says.  "Tell him about his son and find out what he knows."

Even though Bond longs for action, he feels obliged to say, "Are you sure he'll talk to me?  I did beat his head against a table before tying him to a chair."  This time, he gets several uneasy looks, which makes for a refreshing change.  "I'll go, of course, but—"

"Yes.  You'll go."  She hangs up.

Bond takes a deep breath, nods to himself, and puts his mobile back in his pocket.  Just as he's nearly to the door, though, he hears a swift step behind him.  He turns to see the bespectacled young man approaching, a look of grim urgency on his face.

"Listen," he mutters, looking back at the flurry of activity behind them, "I'm not prepared to swear to this on my mother's grave or anything, but I think we might be barking up the wrong tree."

"What are you talking about?"

The young man chews his lip.  "Well—the traitor's got us all on the hop, doesn't he?  Looking for something that might not be there.  I think we might be wasting time."

"You're sure as hell wasting mine if you don't spit it out."

He gets a glare in return.  "I wouldn't worry so much about what he could have put into our system," the young man says flatly, "as what he might have taken out.  Otherwise, why bugger off with the laptop?"

Bond purses his lips.  "Taking away the only clue about how to fix whatever he broke?"

"Possibly," the young man agrees, sounding reluctant.  "But…"

Michelakis is waiting.  "Look," Bond says, glancing around the room again, "you might be on to something, for all I know.  See what you can work out.  I've got to go."

The young man straightens his shoulders.  "If anybody here can do it, I can.  Good luck, 007."

"Thanks," Bond says sourly, and heads out.

Christ.  Everyone's a bloody expert.

 

* * *

 

Michelakis goes very quiet when he gets the news.  He looks down at hands, resting handcuffed on a table in the interrogation room.  He's got a nasty bruise on the side of his head where Bond smacked him against the table, but no other injuries seem apparent; they've been leaving him alone while they tried to get at the boy. 

Bond holds up his mobile with a picture of Q on the display.  "Do you recognise this man?" he asks in Greek.

Michelakis regards him silently.

"He was here earlier today," Bond says.

Michelakis swallows.

"He killed your son," Bond says.  "He poisoned him."

Michelakis closes his eyes and makes a low, groaning sound deep in his throat.

"Do you recognise him?" Bond repeats. 

"He looked into my cell this morning," Michelakis says.  "He smiled at me.  He waved.  Then he left.  He smiled at me, and waved."  He gives Bond a look full of loathing.  "How do I know it's as you say?  How do I know my son is even dead?  No one will let me see him."

Fifteen minutes ago, Forensics messaged Bond a picture of Junior's face, pale and cold, lips blackened with whatever he'd taken.  Apparently Q had offered the boy a cup of strong coffee.  Bond pulls up the photo on his mobile and shows it to Michelakis without a word.

Michelakis lowers his head to rest on top of his hands. 

Bond waits for another moment before he says, "Had you seen him before he looked into your cell?"

When Michelakis raises his head, his eyes are red and wet, but no tears are falling.  "If I tell you all I know, and you find him," he says, "will you give him to me?"

"No," Bond says.  "You can't make him suffer as badly as I can."  He waves the phone.  "I'll have another photo for you, though."

"You care nothing about justice for me.  What did he take from you?  Why do you want him so badly?"

"If you cooperate, we'll release you back to Cyprus.  I need you to tell me all that you—"

"Cyprus?  What the hell do I care?  All I loved in the world is gone.  What does it matter where I go?  Tell me about this man.  Who is he?  Did he steal from you?  Did he lie to you?  How did he get near Christoph?  Did he—"

"He killed your son," Bond repeats.

Michelakis closes his eyes again.  His shoulders rise and fall as he strives for breath. 

"I need to catch him.  And I need to do it quickly.  Tell me about what your son was involved in.  Everything you know."

Michelakis looks down at the table.  Bond gestures at the guard.  "Take off his handcuffs."

The guard obeys, but Michelakis barely seems to notice the good faith gesture.  He says, "Christoph was a smart boy.  He loved computers and mathematics.  I wanted him to go to college, but he didn't like school, he didn't do well, didn't have many friends.  He dropped out of school."  Bond nods, hoping that this is going somewhere.  "I kept telling him he needed to get a job, needed to make money.  I didn't want him to get into work like what I did.  But he didn't do anything.  Just played those online games with people he'd never even met, for hours every day.  And then one day, his cousin called.  Stavros."

Stavros Kara, the chemist.  Bond manages to keep lounging in the chair as if this is of no interest to him. 

"Christoph always looked up to Stavros, wanted to be like him.  Stavros got a degree, he got a good job all the way off in China, everyone was so proud of him.  Everyone in the neighborhood would ask Christoph when he was going to do something big, too.  And then Stavros calls him, says he knows some people through his work who want a computer genius, and Stavros has told them all about him.  They send him computers.  And money."

"Where's the money?" Bond asks, thinking of the shabby flat.

"I put it away, I didn't spend it.  I wanted us to leave Cyprus.  Start over somewhere else.  But at first I didn't know, I didn't know Stavros would get my boy in trouble.  I thought he was just taking care of someone in our family.  But then they start asking me to do things too.  They said it would pay more than my usual work."  He gives Bond a bitter smile.  "I think you know what that is."

"I don't care what it is," Bond says, remembering the faintest taste of something unexpectedly sour in his Scotch, the pucker of M's lips as she sipped from her own glass.  "Keep talking.  What did they ask you to do?"

"They put me in touch with a man.  I don't know his name.  I can describe him to you.  I met up with him in North Nicosia.  He said he came from Istanbul.  He's very dangerous, I think.  I remember thinking, I never want him to meet Christoph—" Michelakis makes a sudden, choking sound, and presses his hand to his mouth. 

There's no time to spare for his grief.  "Describe him," Bond orders.

Michelakis gulps and nods.  "About your height and build.  Grey eyes.  His hair is greying too, but he is not an old man.  Perhaps younger than you, even, but not by much, I think." 

"Turkish?"

"No, no.  I don't want to say what he is, though, I don't know.  I didn't recognise his accent."

"What else?"

"His face is very fierce.  He moves quickly.  I think he's killed many people.  He's better than me—even in my prime, I never had that look.  As I said…I didn't want him near my son."

"What did you do for this man?"

"I only met him once.  We spoke for a little, but he wouldn't answer my questions, and I soon realised I didn't want him to.  I don't know his name," he repeats.  "He gave me something to bring back to Christoph.  One of those small things—you plug them into computers.  I don't know what they're called.  He said it had instructions."

"A memory stick?"  Michelakis shrugs.  "Do you know what those instructions were about?"

"No.  Not really.  But later that day, Christoph told me there was something else for me to do soon, something that would pay big money.  He said I had to meet that man again and give him something very important."

Bond's stomach clenches.  "What?"

"How should I know?  It never happened.  But Christoph said that it would be the end of it all, the last thing we had to do.  I made him promise.  We would have the money, and we would go somewhere else.  I didn't like these people.  I no longer trusted Stavros.  Have you spoken to Stavros?  Where is he?"

"It's not your concern where Stavros is," Bond says, instead of 'we've got no bloody clue.'  "Think as hard as you can.  What were Christoph's exact words about that man, about the delivery you were to make?"

"He said they told him—those people, the Chinese people, I suppose—that my contact with…this man…would mean they got what they needed."

Bond inhales through his nose.  He thinks he's finally starting to see the shape of this plan, the outline of it.  Confusing, unnecessarily complex, but it worked. 

"So he never said that you were to meet the man again, and deliver something personally," he says.  "Not in those exact words."

For a moment, confusion peeks through Michelakis's grief.  "No, but what else could he have meant?  How else would they get anything from us?"

"That's what I'm going to find out."  There's nothing more for him to learn here.  Bond rises to his feet.  "Thank you for cooperating.  I'll see about getting you back to Cyprus soon."  He'll serve quite well as bait.  Someone's bound to come sniffing after him.  Possibly this man he's been describing.  "I'm sorry about your son."

"Sorry.  _Sorry,"_ Michelakis spits.  "You kill the man who murdered him, that's all I need.  I don't need you to be sorry.  What do you know about my son?"

"Enough for my purposes." 

"I've lost everything."  For the first time, tears appear in his eyes.  "Everything that matters to me."

What the hell's he meant to say to that?  Bond sighs and adjusts his cuffs.  "Goodbye, Mr. Michelakis."

"I hope you do too," Michelakis says.  "I hope you lose her."

On his way to the door, Bond pauses and looks back over his shoulder.  "What?"

"Before they separated us, Christoph said you were on the phone, he said you mentioned a woman.  He said you were very angry.  This is about a woman, isn't it?"  Michelakis makes a choking noise.  "Always it's to do with a woman."

Does Michelakis know more than he's admitting to?  Bond says through a dry mouth, "Is that so?  What makes you think a woman's so important?"

"The look on your face when I mentioned her,"  Michelakis says.  His own face grows haggard.   "And I—my son.  My lost boy.  I failed him, I left him to die."  He hides his face in his hands and finally begins to weep.  "My Christoph, my son."

"Take him back to his cell," Bond orders the guard as he leaves.  "You'll get further instructions soon."

When he emerges into the daylight, into a part of London that very few people would dream holds a top-secret interrogation facility, he takes a few minutes to adjust.  Not just to the sun. 

He calls M, but he can't get her.  Tanner picks up, though, and listens to Bond's report before he says, "I'll make the call on this one.  We'll send him back to Cyprus immediately.  003's kept a close eye on his flat, naturally, but hasn't reported anything suspicious.  Maybe when Michelakis is back home, we'll see some action.  I'll get Q branch trying to find that memory stick, too.  In the meantime, we've finally caught a break."

"Q?" Bond asks at once.  "You apprehended him?"

"If we'd apprehended Q, I wouldn't be chatting with you," Tanner snaps.  "No, none of his known passports or cards have been flagged."  Not a surprise, Bond thinks.  Q's probably helped himself to multiple passports right under Six's nose over the years, and he could hack himself a ticket to any destination in the world.  "We've circulated his picture among the police and security at every airport and train station in Britain, but so far, nothing."

"Interpol?" Bond asks as he crosses the street.

"Nothing there, either.  Of course we've had to tread lightly—they ask more questions than local bobbies."

"Does Number 10 know about this yet?"  Tanner's silence tells him everything.  "That's where she is, isn't she?"

"They want information we haven't got yet," Tanner says.

"So what on earth's the good news?  You said we'd caught a break?"

"Stavros Kara.  The cousin.  He's been spotted in Istanbul."

Bond's eyes widen as he gains the other side of the road.  "That is a break."

"We've got an embedded agent tailing him for now."

"Michelakis said his contact hailed from Istanbul."

"Yes.  I've made a note of your description.  We'll send 003 over to detain Kara and begin the interrogation process."

"It might not be that easy."

"When is it ever?  Get in touch with Ronson and debrief him.   Tell him to contact me as soon as you're finished."

"And then what?"

"I don't know yet," Tanner says in exasperation.  "The situation's changing by the minute." 

No, it isn't.  That's the problem.  They're in a holding pattern, not in flight.  Bond forbears to say so, telling Tanner instead, "I told Michelakis I'd kill Q and show him the picture."

"Bond, why the hell do you say things like that?  Call Ronson.  I'm busy."  Tanner hangs up.

Bond rolls his eyes:  big bloody surprise that was.  But M would have understood.  Bond hopes she'll let him keep his word.  It's not that his heart bleeds terribly for Michelakis per se—there are too many old fools like him and too many young fools like his son for Bond to weep at their plight.  And he doubts very much that Junior is a tragic loss to the world at large.  But it's not often that he gets that 'justice is served' feeling in his line of work, even if he does it in aid of Queen and country.  Yes.  She'd understand that just fine. 

_Always it's to do with a woman,_ Michelakis had said, his voice thick with both grief and scorn.  Poor old bastard.  He has no idea.

 

* * *

 

Debriefing 003 turns into debriefing a lot of other people, which turns into various background checks, contacting embedded agents, warning certain parties, deliberately not warning other certain parties, and trying to work out the difference between the two.  It's the part of his job he would prefer to avoid.  Everything is much simpler and more entertaining when M just fires him like a bullet all over the globe and pads his expense account.

What with one thing and another, he doesn't make it back to HQ until midnight.  He's done everything he's been told, and a few things he hasn't.  It's likely he'll be sent out into the field tomorrow, to Cyprus or Chongqing or God knows where.  In the absence of further instructions, he should probably  just go home and try to rest up for the next round.  But he doesn't.

People are still buzzing about, of course, but their numbers are much depleted.  Even in the midst of crisis, nobody wants to pay government employees overtime.  Except for the so-called essential workers, offices and cubicles are dark. Bond heads to M's office, which is also dark, except for the single lamp on her desk.  Nobody's working at any of the surrounding stations.  She's alone. 

As he heads through the glass doors, into her sanctum, Bond has to give her credit: for all that anyone could look in and see them, he feels as if he's entering another sphere, another world, that belongs only to her.  Perhaps she's on to something after all.

Her back's to him as she sits in her chair and gazes out of the window, looking at the Thames and the lights of London.  "Ma'am," he says.  She doesn't turn around, but waves her hand vaguely to the right, where he sees an opened bottle of bourbon at the end of her desk next to an empty glass.

"Thanks," he says, helps himself, and walks around her desk.  Rather than pulling up a chair, he elects to lean against the window, resting his shoulder against the glass as he sips.

He doesn't look at M until the glass is half empty.  When he does, he sees that she's not looking back at him, but holds her gaze over the Thames.  Her face is as still and unrelenting as stone.  He wonders how many murders she has plotted, how many bodies she has buried, in the last hour alone, within the confines of her mind. 

When she finally speaks, it's a curse: "Q."

Bond sips from his glass again.  "Have you worked out when he turned?"

She looks down at her own empty glass.  He does the gentlemanly thing and refills it for her, wondering how many she's had.  "As far as I can tell, yesterday," she says.

"Come on."

She shakes her head.  "There's no indication.  Not so much as a sneeze of impropriety in any of his reports, his correspondence, his documentation.  He's got no family, but nothing's wrong with his friends.  At least, the friends we know about."  She closes her eyes and takes a long drink. 

Then she says, "It's Craig Mitchell all over again, only worse.  A thousand times worse."

"Define 'worse,'" Bond says, swirling the bourbon about.  "Q didn't attempt to shoot you."

"I wish he had."

"Stop it," Bond snaps before he can stop _himself._

"I'm not being self-pitying, 007.  I am merely pointing out that an attempt on my life would be far preferable, in the larger picture, to an attempt on the national security.  Oh God, what a bloody mess."  She rubs her forehead.  Gone is the rage on her face from when Q's treachery was discovered; only exhaustion is left. 

"Should I ask about the PM?" he says.

She laughs harshly.  "Bond, I haven't voted in nearly ten years.  Do you want to know why?  Because I refuse to take even one iota of responsibility for whatever bloody fool tries to pretend that he understands my job better than I do, before threatening to take it away, as if that'd be some kind of punishment!"

"Indeed.  Should've stayed in bed," Bond says.  She gives him a wide eyed look, and he almost spills his drink when he realises— "Ah, that's what our au pair used to say.  When a day went wrong."

She snorts.  "Yes.  It does strike a chord."  Then she shakes her head.  "Bond, why the hell did he do it?  How did they get to him?  Was he unhappy?  All he wanted—from what I could tell, all that man ever wanted was bigger and better gadgets to play with, and a workshop for all his magical toys."

"Then someone's given him better gadgets and a bigger workshop."

"No doubt—but surely that's not enough to push a man to treason and murder.  If he's so dissatisfied with what we had to offer, why not just sell himself to the Americans?  They wipe their arses with dollars in the Department of Defence.  They'd have had him, too."  She finishes her glass and glares down at it.  He remembers how, in Craig Mitchell's flat, she'd smashed an ashtray to bits in her anger.  "Or maybe they wouldn't have.  Maybe their background checks are worth a tinker's damn, unlike ours, apparently."

"I think it is enough," Bond says. 

"What?"

"Gadgets and workshops.  Enough to push him to treason.  People will turn for less than we'd like to think."

She nods.  She knows.  Then she breathes, "The surprise is not that people have a price.  It's how small that price inevitably is."

"Mm."  Bond shrugs.  "We won't know till we catch him."

They wait in silence for a few minutes that, if not for the threat of imminent destruction, would be companionable.  He's not sure what they're waiting for.  He wishes he knew.

Then she stands up and sets the empty glass on her desk.  She moves to stand next to him at the window, but she doesn't look at him.

"You haven't got one, have you?" she asks.  "A price."

His mouth goes suddenly dry.  "For treason?" he says.  "No."

"No."  She reaches up and touches the glass, leaving faint smudges behind.  "I know that."

"I should hope so."  Restless, he turns until his back's to the window.  From here, he can see the silhouettes of people in the outer sphere, hustling back and forth.  "I'm quite happy with the toys I've got."

"Is that all it is?" she asks sharply. 

He drains the glass dry.  "No.  I am not for sale in any respect."

"I'm glad to hear it."  She sighs, and he glances down at her.  He's still getting used to the lower heels she wears now.  He wonders, whom else does she talk to like this?  Tanner, possibly.  But the other double-ohs?  Would she give Ronson a drink and talk to him about prices?

He knows the answer to that.  "M," he says.  "When you said you had to become someone else.  What did you mean?"  She hisses.  He presses on anyway.  "You didn't anticipate this, did you?  You can't have."

"No.  Not this, specifically.  Not this."  She shivers as if cold, and hugs herself.  "I don't know what I am anticipating.  But it isn't finished yet.  This can't be the whole of it."

Now he feels cold, too.  "The whole of what?"

"I don't know yet.  Didn't I just say I don't know?"

"M—"

"The past never stays buried, James.  You know that better than anyone."

He looks at her.  Then he sets his glass on the windowsill and takes a step forward.  "Yes, I do.  What's trying to dig its way up?"

She turns to him then, and for just a second, looks utterly lost.  His breath catches.  He thinks just once, right now, let the truth come out.  Let her trust him with this.  He's worthy of it, they've both earned this moment—

Footsteps.  Tanner's, as he hurries through the open door.  Bond and M don't exactly jump apart, but she takes a step backwards and his expression turns surly, which amounts to the same thing.

Tanner glances back and forth between them, but his face remains impassive as he says, "Update, ma'am.  Agent Q5 says he's following up on something he was discussing with 007 earlier."

"Who?" Bond asks blankly.

"An excitable young fellow from Q branch," Tanner says, reaching towards the speaker on M's desk.  "I assumed you'd know.  May I, ma'am?"

"Yes, of course," M says, rubbing the back of her neck and glaring at Bond as if something irritating has happened, and it is somehow his fault.

Tanner presses the speaker button.  "You're on, Q5.  I've got M and 007 here.  Go."

"Ma'am, sirs," a young man's voice says, and oh, right.  That boy with the spectacles, Bond remembers.  "As I told 007 earlier, I had my doubts about what Q had done when he connected Christoph's—er, the boy's laptop, to the mainframe.  He said he was uploading something, so naturally we started looking for malicious code in our system.  But I thought that might be a blind, you know, put us off the scent, you see?"

"Go on," M snaps.

"Yes, ma'am.  I've looked and I'm afraid I've reached some very troubling conclusions.  I don't know if he uploaded anything—they're still looking for that—but he did download something.  I'm not totally certain what it is, and I've spent hours decrypting it.  But it looks like a list of names."

"Names?  What names?"

"Er, there are rather a lot of them.  Over three hundred in all.   Eighty-seven have been tagged as employees of MI6, complete with dossiers."

"Employees?"

"Well—agents.  No clerical assistants or anything." 

"Agents!"  M runs a hand through her short hair, fluffing it.  "Over three hundred names—read me the ones from Six.  No.  Wait."  She closes her eyes.  "You're in Q branch?   Stay there.  We're coming to you.  I want to see exactly what you see."

Five minutes later, they're gathered around Q5 and his laptop while the rest of Q branch maintain a respectful distance, throwing curious looks their way as they continue to search the MI6 system for any sludge Q might have thrown into it.  By now, though, Bond doubts they'll find anything.  He's got a nasty feeling that this young swot's correct: Q didn't infect, he pilfered. 

Q5 points at the monitor.  "Here's the list, ma'am.  It looks as if he compiled it from different locations and downloaded it into the hard drive of that laptop he took.  It doesn't mean much to me, but…"

His voice trails off.  Bond scarcely notices.  He's too busy watching M.  The colour is draining out of her face so quickly that he worries she might actually lose consciousness.  Alarmed, he glances at Tanner for help, only to see that Tanner, stoic Tanner, seems none too steady on his feet either.

Bond looks at the names again.  He's not quite as in the dark as Q5.  Some of the names are familiar, and he can put faces to a few.  But not enough for him to see the big picture that M and Tanner clearly do. 

"Oh, hell," Tanner breathes.

"What is it?" Bond asks. 

"Leave us," M says to Q5.  She waves her hand towards another part of the room.  Bond's relieved—a little—to see that she seems to have recovered her equilibrium.  "Stand over there and just wait.  And be quiet."

Q5 does, hopping up to his feet and hurrying away from his desk, going to stand by the wall like a naughty schoolboy with his hands folded in front of him. 

"What is it?" Bond repeats.

Tanner moves his finger over the trackpad, hovering the cursor over one of the names and clicking on it.  A dossier pops up.  It shows the photograph of a black man in his early thirties.  His name:  Ben Daheer.  Beneath is the alias "Imam Madaki."  He is, in reality, an agent of MI6; he is, in his public life, a faithful ally of al-Qaeda, operating out of Somalia. 

Tanner clicks on another name.  This one's an American: Paul Inglis, alias Arjan Demaci.  Working out of Bangladesh, an arms smuggler's faithful right hand. 

Andrew Surry, alias Viktor Nikitan, in Afghanistan, doing all sorts of things.    

"NATO agents," M whispers, pressing a hand to her cheek.  "Embedded in terrorist organizations across the globe.  Hundreds of them.  Bloody Christ.  Probably all of them."

Bond presses his lips together.  He supposes it's not really a surprise.  If someone at Q's level defects, he's going to steal information far more substantial than a few passwords.  It was bound to be catastrophic.  But there's suspecting that, and then there's seeing it firsthand. 

"On a hard drive," M continues, as if trying to explain it to herself.  "Every single one of them on one single fucking hard drive."

"Could be a good thing," Bond says.  She gives him a look of disbelief.  "A single hard drive can be recovered or destroyed pretty easily, can't it?"

"Yes," Tanner says, taking a deep breath.  "And Q5 said he'd had to decrypt the list first, didn't he?  Said it took him hours."

"It won't take Q that long, will it?" M snaps.  "Whenever he gets it to whomever's bought it.  He's the one who encrypted it in the first place."

"No, ma'am.  But it does mean that it's probably not already in a cloud somewhere."

She crosses her arms, narrowing her eyes in thought.  "Bond, your report from this morning stated that Christoph Michelakis Senior was in contact with a man who claimed to be from Istanbul.  Who had connections to the Chongqing pharmaceutical facility."

"Yes.  He gave Christoph Junior a memory stick containing instructions.  I don't suppose that's been found."  Tanner shakes his head unhappily.  "Probably in Q's pocket, then, or destroyed altogether.  And Michelakis was under the impression that he was to meet this man again and deliver something, but I don't think so.  I think he misunderstood."

"This unknown man sent the boy his instructions," M says slowly, tapping a finger against her bottom lip.  "And you believe that was meant to be the end of their contact?"

"Not quite.  I think Michelakis was set up by this man—he probably tipped us off."

"And we're the ones who made the delivery," Tanner breathes. 

"Christoph Junior works for the pharmaceutical," Bond confirms.  "Connected to them by his cousin Stavros Kara, who also knew this anonymous man.  Junior said he delivered information.  We get a lead on him, we bring him back to London, and we put him right into Q's hands."

"And he tells Q everything he wants to know, whatever that is," Tanner says, "before conveniently dying."

"And Q nicks a laptop, downloads the world's most dangerous list, and runs for it."

"Might not have been a random laptop, either," Tanner says.  "Notable, perhaps, for how nondescript it was—who knows what else was on it?"

M's been too silent.  Bond and Tanner turn to look at her of one accord.  She's looking off into space, her lips in a tight line.  "Ma'am?" Tanner asks hesitantly.

"Istanbul," she says.  "Search every flight to Turkey and Cyprus.  Every airport security camera.  I want people on this twenty-four hours a day until I see Q's face in a concrete location.  That's where he's gone, I'll bet my life on it.  If this 'man' of ours is his connection to Chongqing, and whatever's happening there…"  She shakes her head.  "I don't want any more bodies.  Lin Chun-Yao.  Now the Michelakis boy.  We're losing time and information.  There's a larger picture here, everything is connected, and I don't want any more sources to drop dead."

"Do you have any idea about how this, er, connection is working?  About the bigger picture?" Tanner asks.

M goes silent again, but Bond sees a flash in her eyes.  She knows.  And she's deciding not to share.  Frustration forms a hot fist in the centre of his chest.

"Find the list," she says.  "Find Q.  Bring both of them back here.  That's the first step, that's all that concerns us now."  She looks at Bond.  "I'm sending you to Turkey at once.  We'll contact 003 and brief him while you're en route."

If he hadn't seen that flash in her eyes, he'd protest that this was putting the cart before the horse, that they don't have any way of knowing that Q will be in Istanbul or not; but whatever she knows, she knows. 

"Tanner, arrange matters with 003," she says.  "I'll be in my office."  Tanner nods briskly and heads off.  M turns around and says, "Q5!"

The young man, who has remained standing obediently by the wall, jumps a little and hurries forward, his eyes wide and eager behind his spectacles.  "Yes, ma'am?"

She looks at him silently for a moment, and then says, "Good work," before turning on her heel and striding away.  This leaves Bond to watch in amusement as the young man glows. 

Then the glow disappears as he turns back to Bond, and he looks decidedly less impressed.  "Well, what do I do now?" he asks.

"Watch and wait," Bond says.  "If you're lucky, you'll have done your duty and be allowed to go home."

"Oh, no.  I hardly ever go home.  And certainly not tonight."  His eyes burn with a fierce light.  "I'm ready for anything, 007." 

"I can't tell you what a relief that is," Bond says, before nodding at him and leaving him there, following M towards the lift. 

They get in alone.  The doors close.  He turns to face her, but doesn't say anything.

She purses her lips and doesn't look back.  Then she says, "Trust me."

"Do I get that from you in return?"

"You're not paying attention, Bond."  Her voice is quiet and even.  "You do not owe me your trust.  You owe me your obedience."

But she asks for his trust anyway.  She asks him for more than he is bound and obligated to give.  He supposes, on one level, it could be an honour: M, valuing the good opinion of an agent, a mere blunt instrument.  Setting him, yet again, above the rest.  But after tonight, with what's at stake, it seems—in her own words—more like a bloody cheek. 

His obedience isn't enough for her.  Him on his knees in the dark, begging for the privilege of licking her cunt, for Christ's sake—discovering that it thrilled him more than he'd thought possible—that wasn't enough.  Over and over again, she turns him inside out, and he lets her, and it's never enough.

The lift door opens.  He looks straight ahead and says, "Of course you've got my obedience, ma'am."

He might be imagining the faint hitch in her breath.  He might not.  He exits the lift and heads for the doors without waiting to be dismissed.

 

* * *

 


	4. A View to a Kill

Three hours later, on a flight to Istanbul, Bond thinks about one of M's maxims: _Regret is unprofessional._ It might well be. Nevertheless, he wishes he'd refrained from taking that parting shot. It hadn't satisfied him, it hadn't been anything more than a low blow. Neither of them needs that just now. Certainly she doesn't.

Here and now, between places, he can think about it. She's just landed in trouble up to her earlobes. Even if Bond steps off the plane and trips over Q at the baggage claim, that won't fix the monumental breach in security that started all this. Fair or not, that's on her head. It's another part of her job, and M fights her own battles, but that doesn't mean he has to make them more demoralising.

Besides, he does trust her, for God's sake. He might have just said so.

An apology, of course, is out of the question. It would only embarrass them both, and on his end, would border on impertinence. He'll pretend it never happened, and just go about the daily business of trusting her while he works to fix this colossal goatfuck.

When he touches down in Turkey, he's greeted by the first pleasant surprise he's had in days: agent T19, a lithe, dark-skinned woman with gleaming eyes that suggest both mischief and danger. Her voice is all business as she debriefs him, but he suspects, after they're off duty, when this business is resolved…

"Agent 003's got a lead," she says as she escorts him through Ataturk International Airport. "A man matching the description Michelakis gave us was spotted by one of our street contacts."

"Michelakis's description was pretty vague," Bond points out.

"It was, but the street contact recognised him as a man who's been making a lot of back-and-forth trips. A few discreet inquiries revealed that he's been to China a fair bit recently. And once to Cyprus."

"Ah, well done, then, street contact." Bond feels his pulse rise with growing excitement. Something to do. Victory to be won.

"He's in the Fatih district, last spotted coming out of Serkeci Terminal."

"Took a ride on the Orient Express?"

"I suppose you could call it that. We'll be taking something a little different, however."

She leads him outside to the kerb, where he blinks at the sight of a Land Rover Defender, a hideous monstrosity of a vehicle that's clearly seen better days. She sees the expression on his face. "Don't you dare make fun of my Jag. Double-oh or not, I'll take swift care of you."

"I shall live in hope of that," he says, tossing his bag into the back seat and climbing into the passenger side. She starts the engine. "Oh, very nice."

"What?"

"It started running the moment you turned the key. It must have a gift for this sort of work."

She flattens the accelerator and peels away from the kerb, slamming him back against the seat while various pedestrians shout and curse after them. "You might want to buckle your seat belt," she says. "Bumpy ride ahead."

"I bet you say that to all the double-ohs," he says, buckling up.

"You're only my second." She chuckles. "I've heard about you, though. Sounds as if my sources were correct."

"Do you believe everything you hear?"

"Not even everything I see."

For all that she's lively and beautiful, the banter feels forced on his end—stale, too. A conversation he's had a dozen times with a dozen women. Still, he supposes there's something to be said for the tried-and-true approach.

So he continues gamely, "What do you see?"

"A suggestion," she says as she approaches an intersection where the light is red.

"What?" he asks, even as she flattens the accelerator again and roars through the intersection to the honking of horns and the screeching of brakes.

"That traffic signal," she says. "A suggestion."

"Ah," Bond says, wondering what he's got himself into. "So you aren't open to suggestion, then?"

"I like making the suggestions," she says, "not following them."

"A woman after my own heart."

"I'm not after any of your organs," she says archly. "We're on the clock."

The _But perhaps afterward_ remains clearly unsaid. She's not embarrassed or coy. She likes to have fun, this one, and she'd like to give James Bond a test drive. See what all the fuss is about. He knows he'd enjoy satisfying her curiosity, once the work is done.

There's no reason he shouldn't. M is not his lover, nor will ever be. He owes her only one kind of fidelity, and he already gives her that in spades, doesn't he?

"Where's Ronson now?" he asks.

"He's located Stavros Kara, the chemist. We're going to meet him. And with a bit of luck, this other bloke too, if we can get the drop on him."

Bond's skin prickles all over. He is almost appalled at the way his pulse leaps, at the surge of rage that dims his vision for a moment. He tells himself that there's no time for that, of course Ronson's detained Kara, that was his job, and this isn't a surprise. This isn't personal. Bond is not, under any circumstances, to get his hands around the throat of the man from Chongqing and start squeezing.

( _Ruined everything. He ruined everything. She'd kissed him so much, but hadn't let him touch her, and everything's been shit ever since no matter how hard they pretend. Stavros Kara is nearly within his grasp.)_

No. Bond breathes in and exhales. He's learned to be better than this. He's not going back down that pointless road. No.

Oblivious to all this, T19 says, "Oh! God, I nearly forgot. I'm supposed to tell you to call and check in now that you've arrived."

"Call who?"

"Mr. Tanner."

Of course. "I can hardly wait." Bond opens up the contact list on his mobile and dials Tanner.

Tanner picks up straightaway. "Bond?"

"Reporting in. I'm with T19, en route to meet Ronson."

"Yes. Developments have—oh—" There's a confusion of noise on the other end.

"Tanner?" Bond asks.

But it's M who replies, "007."

He glances at T19 as he says, "Yes, ma'am."

"Things are heating up. We've just lost contact with 003 as he was interrogating Kara."

"We're on our way to the rendezvous point now. Do you know what happened?"

"No. The earwig went dead. Speaking of, put yours in now, and tell T19 to as well. I smell Q in this. I'm directing operations personally."

"Yes, ma'am. I'll be back in a moment." Bond hangs up and sighs gustily. T19 glances at him. "Earpieces in. We're performing live for a studio audience."

"Really?" For a moment, T19's joie de vivre seems a touch less vivre. "She's going to be listening in the whole time? M?"

"That she is. So don't forget your lines." Bond reaches into the back seat for his bag, from which he liberates his earpiece. He is not particularly looking forward to this. The last time they tried it was two years ago, and by the end of the night, he'd learned just how thorough M's command of profanity really was. She'd as good as admitted that she would rather not know what he was up to every single second. Bloody Q.

"Hell," T19 mutters. "Open the glove box for me, would you?" Bond does, and passes her the earpiece inside before putting his own in. "I'm not going to screw this up, I'll tell you that. Last thing I need is a bollocking from Herself."

"Well, she can't bust your balls if you don't have any."

"Ha ha, 007. That's the point." She wedges her earpiece in. "I don't expect you to understand what she means to the women of the Service. But you might at least try to imagine." Before Bond can even begin to think of a response to that, she touches the earpiece and says, "T19 here, ma'am. Yes? Yes, he's putting his in right now."

Bond turns his own earpiece on. "Go, M."

But Tanner goes first: "Ronson's mobile phone is still emitting a signal from the rendezvous point, but he's no longer responding to our attempts to contact him."

"T19, what can you tell us about the rendezvous point?" M asks. "Are you familiar with it?"

"I know the area, ma'am. It's not far from Eminonou Square. Very busy, densely packed. We'll have to be careful of civilians."

Bond stops himself from scoffing just in time. "T19," M says, "you'll have to be careful to finish the job, whatever it takes. We must get that list back before Q delivers it, and we must get Q, too. All other concerns are perforce secondary. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," says T19, looking a little pale. "Erm, the rendezvous point. It's a ground-floor flat. Building is flanked by two one-way streets."

"We've got you on the satellite link, T19," Tanner says. "I'm tracking you now. I've just had a report of a man approaching the rendezvous point in a black car. Witness says he matches the description of Michelakis's contact."

"Hurry," M orders.

T19's idea of 'hurrying' is even more hurried than most MI6 agents'. She takes the Jag down a narrow alley that almost fits the description of a one-way street, sending two pedestrians scurrying for cover in front of her and just barely jumping out of her way as they gain the mouth of the alley. If M weren't listening in, Bond might mention that while civilian safety isn't their first priority, they're not actively out to commit murder.

As it is, he holds his tongue, and within a few minutes they're pulling up to the kerb at the rendezvous point. "We're here," Bond says.

"See anyone we know?" Tanner asks.

"No. Not even any black cars on this side of the building. I'm going in. T19, circle the block and stay in contact."

"Careful, Bond," M says as he gets out of the car.

"Always," he replies, looking up and down the pavement before going through the door. The instant he's out of view of the street, he draws his gun. The door opens on to a long dark corridor, and as his eyes adjust to the dim light, Bond sees two lumps lying on the floor at the end of it.

He knows what those are. He pauses, listening, and hears no other sounds. Proceeds a few steps, with the gun held out before him, until he stands over the two corpses in the hallway. Turning one over with his foot, and then the other, he is frustrated—but not altogether surprised—when he sees who they are.

"I've found Q and Kara," he says, looking down into their glassy-eyed faces. "They're both dead."

"Damn it! What happened?" M demands. "Can you tell?"

"They've both been shot. And they're still warm. I could search them, but I think I'd be wasting my time." If Q or Kara did have the hard drive, then whoever murdered them wasn't likely to leave it in their pockets.

"Then go," M says. "Follow the trail if it's still fresh. Hurry!"

"Too bad I don't have time to take a picture," Bond mutters as he steps over the bodies, making sure to put one foot right on top of Q's lifeless chest.

"What?" M says.

"For Michelakis," Tanner sighs. "He said he would."

"Oh, Christ, 007," M growls. "Save it for later, get a move on."

Tanner clears his throat. Bond can't help smirking even as he moves down the hallway. As he continues into the building, he smells more gun smoke. Seems as if he's just barely missed a firefight. Pity.

He rounds a corner into another long hallway. At the end of it, a door stands half-open. He moves swiftly, but silently, towards it, slips past it, and takes a moment to case the room. Another dead body lies behind the door: a man Bond doesn't recognise. A second corpse blocks the doorway to the loo, blood pooling from beneath one temple. Another unknown.

Bond turns from the second corpse to see the reason Agent 003 hasn't been answering the phone. He's slumped in a chair in a sitting room, barely able to lift his head. He watches silently as Bond approaches, his breath painful and laboured. His gun rests on the floor, just beneath his dangling fingertips.

"Ronson's down," Bond says. "He needs medical evac."

"Where is it?" M asks, as if she didn't hear. "Is it there?"

Even as she asks, Bond's already spotted the laptop. It's been ripped open. "The hard drive's gone."

"Are you sure?"

He picks up the laptop, as if his quarry would have been stupid enough to tear out the hard drive and leave it on the coffee table. No such luck. He tosses the laptop away. "It's gone. Give me a minute." He drops to his knees before Ronson, peeling away his suit jacket to see the blood-soaked shirt beneath.

"They must have it. Get after them," M orders.

Blood oozes from Ronson's mouth. But it might not be too late—not yet. And there aren't enough men in the world who know when to hold their tongues. "I'm stabilising Ronson," he says, seizing a towel lying over the back of a nearby chair and pressing it hard to the wound. Ronson doesn't so much as flinch.

"We don't have the time!" M says.

He doesn't like the pitch of her voice, edging as close to panic as he's ever heard from her. "I have to stop the bleeding," he says through his teeth.

 _"_ _Leave him!"_ M says, as if Ronson's just sprained an ankle or something, or as if his fifteen years of service to the Service merit only a silent, solitary death.

Bond looks into Ronson's eyes: glazed, anguished, but accepting. He's certainly more at peace with this than Bond is. This man of few words will never speak again. For one more moment, Bond holds his gaze in a final salute, and then he has to get on his feet and go.

As he heads for the exit to the building, he tries to focus again on the mission, and not M's abandonment of one of her own. It isn't personal, he thinks. It can't be. She can't afford to let anything be personal. Not ever.

He steps onto the pavement, blinking in the sunlight, even as T19 pulls up to the kerb. Well, she's got timing down pat. He gets in the Jag and asks, "Have you got him?"

To his relief—and admittedly his surprise—T19 replies, "He's in the black Audi." She nods at the car directly in front of them. Bloody hell, as close as that? "What about Ronson?"

"He's been hit."

"We're sending an emergency evacuation squad," Tanner says over the earwig.

"They'll be too bloody late," Bond snaps. Without help, at the rate he's losing blood, Ronson has perhaps three minutes left on earth. At best.

M says nothing. Bond doesn't know why he expected she would. Tanner says, "Medical evac for Ronson's five minutes away."

That's it, then. Bond pushes 003 out of his mind as best he can. T19 helps by rounding a corner so sharply that she knocks the mirror off his side of the car.

"It's all right," he says, "you weren't using it."

She smirks before deliberately veering the car to the other side and knocking off her own side mirror. "Wasn't using that one either."

At least it makes him smile as they barrel down the street, pursuing the source of all their woe. Bond wonders what this tosser's name is, where he's from, to whom he swears allegiance. He's not sure he'll find out. He knows that M doesn't want any more dead bodies, but he doubts he'll have much of a choice here.

The mystery bloke's certainly figured out that he's being followed, because when the street dead-ends, he doesn't pause before swerving into Eminonou Square itself, knocking over stalls full of food and merchandise, sending screaming people running for cover. T19, who was so concerned about civilians a few moments ago, doesn't flinch as she follows him, slamming down on the accelerator until they're driving side by side.

Bond looks down into the Audi, but can't get a look at the driver's face. He sees what Michelakis meant about greying hair, though. He decides that they can't afford to let this chase keep going, and so he grabs the wheel from T19 and pulls hard to the right, cutting in front of the Audi and sending it flipping on its side.

Unfortunately, it doesn't stay that way. When the Audi skids to a stop, it falls back down on its wheels, and the man inside jumps out, pointing a semiautomatic with—if Bond is not mistaken—a Beta-C drum magazine attached. "Keep your head down," he orders T19 as he throws himself out of the Jag and heads for the shelter of a nearby stall, returning fire with his Walther.

Just as he gains cover, though, three local police roar into the square on motorcycles, doing fuck-all to shield themselves. They're mowed down by the semiautomatic as surely as if they were jumping trenches in the Somme. Their chief purpose seems to be throwing one of the motorcycles right in the way of Bond's quarry, who's happy enough to grab it and zip out of the square before Bond can get a bead on him.

Bloody marvellous. Bond liberates a motorbike of his own from a nearby man who seems only too happy to surrender it at the sight of the Walther. He sets off in immediate pursuit, thinking briefly that he's glad it's not his job to justify the diplomatic incident this has just become. In his ear, he hears T19 shouting, over a background of screams, "Just get clear!" And then, "Tanner? Which way?"

"Keep going," Tanner tells her, while Bond tries to focus on catching up to the man. "I can direct you from here."

"You both know what's at stake here," M says. "We cannot afford to lose that list."

She sounds more like herself now: cool and firm. Uplifted, Bond replies, "Yes, ma'am," and presses on the accelerator, pleasantly surprised by how well a civilian bike is keeping up with a police vehicle.

What follows is rather exciting. Even though he knows very well what's at stake, Bond cannot deny a thrill at chasing his enemy down the streets and alleys of Istanbul, between cars, even up a stairway, and then—then—

"Where are they now?" T19 asks in his earpiece.

Tanner sounds resigned when he says, "They appear to be on the rooftops of the Grand Bazaar."

That's good to know, Bond thinks, as he guides his bike unerringly over the rooftops, skidding over the tiles, inches away from death and unable to believe he gets paid a princely sum for doing this. Sweet God, he'd do it for free. The rush is incredible. If he actually manages to take this man alive, he'll have to express his gratitude for the first real surge of unfettered exhilaration he's felt in a month. It's like being let out of prison. It's like coming back to life.

From rooftop to rooftop they jump, practically in flight. It's the closest he's ever come to dancing with another bloke. He thinks that it'd really be something to have a pretty woman riding pillion instead. He can't quite picture it with M, but T19 would probably be a good sport about it. Unless she insisted on driving.

The thought sustains him as he follows the man all the way through a window, crashing through the glass into the enclosed Grand Bazaar itself. Then they speed down the corridors while shoppers jump out of their way, flattening themselves against the walls as the motorbikes whiz past. Then they're out of the building, and back onto the streets. Bond tries to orient himself, but finds that he can't—he doesn't know Istanbul nearly well enough—and has to make do with following the other motorcycle wherever it might go.

Tanner says, "Take a left. There's a bridge. You can cut him off." But Bond's already on a bridge, and it takes him a moment to realise that Tanner's talking to T19. He hears a furious honking of horns up ahead, and sure enough, there's her Jag roaring down the wrong direction of the one-way street, cutting off their quarry and pinning him between their vehicles.

The man's bike skids to a stop. Bond watches as T19 leaps out of the Jag, aiming her gun. But then the man dismounts the bike and, in one smooth movement, leaps off the bridge and down onto the roof of a moving train below. T19 shouts something Bond can't understand, firing rapidly while more civilians scream and dive for cover, but she can't hit him.

Before he really thinks about it, Bond accelerates hard and rams his bike into the railing, flipping it over the top and jumping free just in time to land on the train below. It's not a clean landing by any stretch, and he rolls off the top of the train, barely managing to catch the edge in time so he can pull himself back up. His shoulder aches. Well, at least he's here in one piece.

"What happened?" M asks, her voice clipped.

"They're on the train, ma'am," T19 pants.

"What do you mean, on the train?" M says, as if Bond and his target might be sitting in a carriage waiting to get their tickets punched.

"I mean, they're on top of a train," T19 replies, with that note of disbelief that Bond has long since come to recognise in anyone who works with him for long.

M is clearly not as impressed. "Well, get after them, for God's sake!"

Bond gains his feet and dashes the length of the train, hopping carriages, ultimately leaping down into a low-riding carriage that's transporting a hydraulic excavator. Mystery Man is on top of the carriage just ahead of him. Bond ducks down behind the equipment, firing upwards, but he hits nothing, and is forced to take shelter again when the man begins spraying bullets right back at him. Bloody semiautomatics. So much for fond memories of a motorcycle chase.

"She's going out of range," Tanner says in his ear.

"We've lost tracking, we're going blind here. What's going on?" M snaps.

"I'm still with them!" T19 replies, although as he glances around, Bond can't see her anywhere. Of course, his line of vision is rather limited at the moment as he peers from behind the excavator just in time to see the barrel of the semi aimed at him again. He fires five rounds, and then has to duck out of the way again. Didn't land a single shot.

Damn it, that's the lot, he's out of bullets. He tosses the Walther aside in frustration. What now? He doubts there's a convenient cache of weapons lying about; this isn't a video game. How's he supposed to take the bastard down now? He can't just wait here forever, he's got to find a…

Oh. Hello. Inspiration strikes, and Bond uses the tool he has immediately to hand, climbing up into the cab of the excavator itself, ducking inside it just in time to avoid another deluge of bullets. Right. This is ludicrous, but it's the only weapon to be had.

Besides. It might be fun. He decides not to mention it to M or Tanner, because they hate it when he does this sort of thing, even when it works. Instead, he uses the gears to whirl the house around towards his enemy, swinging the boom out and wide, thinking about how bloody satisfying it'll be if he can just knock the bastard off the train by using a metal bucket with teeth.

Unfortunately, instead of dodging, the man stands his ground and keeps firing straight at Bond. Bullets move faster than the boom, and Bond finds himself snapped back against the seat as he's hit in his right shoulder. Fucking _hell_ , that was a close one—

In front of him, the boom sweeps a long line of cars from the next train carriage, sending them crashing down onto the ground nearby. "What was that?" M asks, sounding aghast.

"VW Beetles? I think?" T19 says. Now, when Bond looks over, he sees her driving alongside, keeping pace with the train.

The man notices her too. She's about to get herself shot. Bond growls and presses forward on the gear shift. The excavator lurches, and then begins to grind forward, flattening the remaining cars in its path. Squashing the Beetles, Bond thinks, as he raises the boom once more. The metal bucket obscures his view, but provides a shield against the bullets that are no doubt still coming his way. And he keeps going forward, driving blind, hoping that something good's going to come of this.

"Bond!" T19 says. "He's uncoupling the cars!"

Or not. This bloke's no slouch, Bond has to give him that. And he can't lose him. _You know what's at stake here,_ M says in his head, and Ronson didn't die for nothing—

Bond snarls, feeling the train car beginning to slow, knowing that it's now completely disconnected from the carriage in front of it. He sends the boom forward again and lowers it down. The man dodges, of course, but Bond achieves his goal: sinking the teeth of the bucket into the roof of the next car.

Then he has to move as quickly as he ever has in his life. Ignoring the burning pain in his shoulder, he climbs out of the top of the cab and onto the boom, using it as a bridge between his carriage and the next one. Far ahead, he sees his quarry running along the top of the train towards the front carriage. Dammit—the train's dragging forward, which means that the bucket is tugging backward, peeling the top off the train car as if it's a can opener, and if Bond doesn't make the jump right bloody _now_ —

He does, leaping over the bucket just as it separates completely from the car, leaving the other carriage behind. To the screams of passengers, he safely lands in a crouch. In the aisle, too, not somebody's lap. Nicely done. He checks his cuffs and proceeds quickly towards the door at the far end of the carriage, ignoring the cries and curious stares.

"007, are you all right?" M asks.

"Just changing carriages," he says, because it's not that he doesn't appreciate the concern, but he doesn't need the distraction. The best thing she and Tanner can do for him right now is keep quiet and let him work.

"What's going on?" she presses. "Report!"

Bond rolls his eyes. Thankfully, T19 pipes up with, "It's…rather hard to explain, ma'am. 007's still in pursuit."

Glancing towards a window, Bond can see that they're heading quickly towards a tunnel. He keeps marching through the carriages, pausing only once to check the wound on his shoulder. It's bleeding steadily and it stings like hell.

By the time he reaches the end of the next car, they're in the tunnel, and he decides now's the moment for the element of surprise. Instead of continuing through to the next car, he climbs up the ladder to the top of the train, in the darkness and the roar. And when they exit the tunnel into the light, there Bond is, face-to-face with the man who's been leading all of MI6 a merry chase for far too long.

He leaps forward and tackles him. The man throws him off to the side and they both scramble back to their feet. Then it's all adrenaline and limbs and movement; Bond forces the pain to the back of his mind and just concentrates on getting this bugger either dead or helpless as quickly as possible. It's not as easy as he'd like. It's not easy at all, in fact. The prick's strong and fast, and now that he's staring him in the eye, Bond can see what Michelakis meant: this is a dangerous man.

Who's been hired by very dangerous people. Ordinary customers don't just stumble across this sort of hired gun. Nor do they steal information from Six. If Bond can pin him down, just get it all out of him, then…

He sees it. The hard drive. On a chain around his opponent's neck. The bastard is wearing the hard drive around his fucking _neck._

Bond's got no idea why this enrages him, but it does. He dodges and lunges, looking for an opening or a weakness, unable to spot one. He can't gain the advantage. With his injury, they're too closely matched. At one point, things seem to be going his way—he actually has the man down and tugs at the chain, trying to choke him with Q's treason. The chain snaps—

The bloke snaps too. He shoves Bond off, leaps to his feet, still gripping the chain in one hand. Then his eyes widen as he stares straight ahead.

They both drop to their knees just in time to avoid being decapitated by another tunnel. In the darkness they tug on the chain, wrestling for the hard drive. Bond's got to get it, he's bloody got to, just for a second, just long enough to step on the fucking thing, or throw it under the train itself, just destroy it, just…

In his ear, T19 tells M, "Looks like there isn't much more road. I don't think I can go any further."

There's no reply. Bond keeps struggling, knowing that M and Tanner are privy to every grunt of effort and hiss of pain he gives. He won't give them many. He's got to end this quickly—he's losing blood slowly, but steadily, and he can't afford a prolonged battle. If only this man would relent just for a moment, one single moment of weakness…

Oh, hell! Not only does the man not relent, he gets Bond in a headlock and starts squeezing. His arm exerts tremendous pressure, and Bond digs his fingers in and tugs at it just hard enough to keep his windpipe from being crushed. He throws him off just as they emerge from the tunnel into the daylight again, gaining his feet, turning around, and landing a swift kick to the gut.

It doesn't even slow the bastard down. He leaps to his feet and throws a punch before dancing backwards. He sees Bond's blood, he knows he can afford to play the waiting game. All he has to do is stay just that much stronger, and stay just out of reach. Bond won't let him. He moves in with a knee to the groin, which the man takes before throwing his own elbow at Bond's throat.

"I may have a shot," T19 says over the earwig.

A _shot?_ Bond doesn't like the sound of that. He and the man are now locked together in a combative embrace, Bond's arms tightening around his shoulders as he tries to wrestle him to the ground. If T19 has the sort of gun that can hit one of them at this distance, the bullet's guaranteed to pass through them both. Bond doesn't fancy that. He'd like to say so, but he doesn't have the breath to spare.

"It's not clean," T19 adds. "Repeat: I do not have a clean shot."

Silence. Nothing. M does not respond. Suddenly the man gets a hand around Bond's throat, whips him around and pins his left arm behind his back. Starts to squeeze. The train whistle blares.

"There's a tunnel ahead," T19 says, strain in her voice. She needs someone to give her an order, that much is clear. "I'm going to lose them."

"Can you get into a better position?" M asks. Bond flails backwards with his elbow, knocking his opponent back a crucial couple of inches. Almost there—in a moment, he can—

"Negative," T19 says. "There's no time!"

Silence from the earpiece. The tunnel approaches. Bond's vision is starting to get fuzzy from the grip on his throat, but he knows he can win if he keeps going—he always wins, she's always trusted him to win, no matter what—he just needs a moment, he can see the hard drive swinging from the man's other hand, he's so close he can taste it—

He throws his elbow backwards, loosening the man's grip enough to get a crucial breath of air. They're almost at the tunnel, but in his mind's eye he's on his knees before her, begging to earn back what he's lost. _Please trust me, trust me again._ He can do this, if he never does anything else in his life, he's going to do this—

Then M roars, "007, will you stop larking about and get back that _fucking_ hard drive!"

Bond throws himself backwards as hard as he can, knocking both himself and his opponent to the floor as the daylight disappears and they enter another tunnel. Larking about? Christ, she would say that, he thinks, gasping for breath.

But it's done the trick. It was what he needed to hear, all he needed; he rolls over, pins the man down, and slams his head back against the metal roof of the train. It stuns him just long enough for Bond to grab his left elbow, pull, twist, and wrench his shoulder from its socket.

The man howls in pain, thrashing ineffectually. Bond uses that split second to grab the hard drive, feeling his hand close triumphantly around it as he shouts, "Who sent you?"

The man's head rolls back and forth as he struggles to get free, even with one arm _hors de combat_. "If you help us, we'll help you!" Bond says. "Cooperate, and you won't be harmed. Tell us what you know!"

"Get the hard drive!" M orders. "For Christ's sake, have you got it?"

"Yes, ma'am. I've got it right—"

Then everything happens too quickly. The train emerges from the tunnel into blinding sunlight. The man bucks up beneath him, knocking Bond to the side, and scrabbling with his good arm for the hard drive while the other arm dangles uselessly at his side. Bond plants his foot in his stomach—the man grabs his ankle—they roll—

And there's nothing beneath him anymore as they fall off the train. The hand on his ankle vanishes, and Bond hears the man scream, but that's all. Hurt and disoriented, still clutching the hard drive, he can't manage any of the usual tactics to soften a fall. He smashes into the earth on his left side, and realises that he's just been rather badly hurt right before his head strikes the ground.

" _Bond!_ " is the last thing he hears M say.

* * *

 


	5. You Only Live Twice

Bond comes to, briefly, when someone moves him, and the pain jerks him back into the world.  The whole left side of his body aches as if it's on fire, and he thinks probably his arm hurts the worst, but he can't focus enough to figure it out.  He groans.

"007!"  T19 says.  "Look at me!  I need you to stay conscious—"

He does his best, and looks at the blurry outline of her, but then she's gone again.

He wakes up when rough hands—he doesn't know whose—pick up his body and move it about like a doll.  Someone's put his left arm in a splint.  Someone else is applying pressure to his right shoulder, where he was shot.  He can't hear anything very well.  There's a roaring, rushing noise somewhere in the distance.  His entire face aches and he tastes blood in his mouth.  Everything hurts.

"M?" he says.

"007." It's T19's voice again, harsh in his ear.  "The Medevac is here.  We've got to move you now.  Are you—"

"Ronson needs 'em," he says, closing his eyes again.

When he finally, properly comes to, he realises that the rushing noise was actually the beating of helicopter blades.  Now they're midair.  He's been immobilised, strapped to a stretcher.  His left arm's still in a splint.  He can feel a bandage wrapped round his right shoulder, but he can't look at it, because his right arm's been tied down, and his head and neck are in an immobiliser too. 

Everything hurts.  Every single thing.  It really hurts to breathe.  He supposes this is good, in the main—it'd be far worse if he couldn't breathe at all, or if he couldn't feel any pain—but he wouldn't call it pleasant.  He still tastes blood when he finally manages, "Ungh."

"He's conscious," one of the medics says, and then he shines a little torch in Bond's eyes.  "Pupils dilating normally.  Eyes focussing.  Agent," he says loudly enough to be heard over the engine, "what's your designation?"

"007."

"Name?"

"Bond.  James Bond."

"How do you feel?" 

He abandons even the idea of sarcasm.  "Ow."

"I'm sure.  Any nausea?"

"Uh-uh." 

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Three." 

"Where have you just been?"

"Istanbul."

"Good.  Very good."

"Mission," he says through swollen lips, retaining just enough sense to know that he shouldn't mention specifics, even to Six's medics.

"Mission accomplished," the medic says as he continues to give Bond's face a critical look.  "That's what I'm supposed to tell you, and I'm afraid that's all I know."

"Man on train."

"If you're referring to that poor sod who's lying in bits and pieces all over the tracks, well, there's your answer."

"Ronson?"

"That's enough questions for now."  He sees the medic pick up a bag of clear liquid.  "And you are in a great deal of pain."

"No," he rasps as the medic slips in the needle into his right arm for the morphine drip.  He tries to  move, and agony flares everywhere, making him grimace and groan. 

"Told you so," the medic says sternly.  He looks over his shoulder and says to somebody else, someone Bond can't see, "Tanner wants updates, so give him one.  007 regained consciousness, was lucid, and has now been sedated."

Tanner?  No, not Tanner.  Bond doesn't want Tanner to get the updates.  He wants—

"M," he says again.  "Tell M…"  Tell her what?  Everything's getting fuzzy, even as the pain mercifully recedes.  "Truss…"

What's he trying to say, again?  He forgets.  It can't be that important.  And why did he ever want to resist the morphine drip?  He can't remember that either.  He goes out.

Then someone shakes him again.  He opens his eyes with a groan.  "Sorry," the medic says, sounding not at all sorry.  "We're waking you every hour."  He holds up his hand.  "How many fingers?"

"Four," Bond says, wanting only to go back to sleep.

"Your designation?"

"007.  God."

"Was 'God' meant to be a response to my question?"

"I'm Bond.  Istanbul, Ronson's dead, get fucked."

"Righty-oh, then," the medic says, gives him a tight smile, and pushes the button on the morphine drip.  "Off you go."

Off he goes.  But it seems he barely closes his eyes before he's wakened again.   "How many fingers?" the medic repeats.

Suddenly bitter, furious, he says, "She used two.  Wouldn't let me use any."

"What?"

"Just your thumb.  Christ." 

"Your designation?"

"Double-oh-fucking-seven."  His mouth still hurts too much for this.  "Morphine."

"Up on the wrong side of the bed, are we?  Should've let a pretty girl do this job," the medic mutters, pushing the morphine button.  "I've heard about you."

He feels sick and hot with rage.  He doesn't know why.  Maybe it's a fever.  It's probably the pain.  Or the drugs.  "You know nothing about me."

"I suppose not."  The medic carefully inspects the bandage over the bullet wound in his right shoulder.  "I don't care much, either.  We're landing outside Haskovo where you'll be transferred to a plane that'll take you back to London.  Don't worry, I shan't be coming along."       

"How badly am I hurt?"

"We won't know for certain until we get some X-rays.  But from basic observation, you've got a broken left arm and shoulder, and a few cracked ribs.  And then there's the shrapnel in your chest.  Multiple contusions and extensive bruising.  You've lost the beauty pageant, but if that's all we're dealing with, I'd say you're the luckiest bastard who ever fell off the top of a moving train." 

Bond knows that's true, knows it's nothing short of a miracle that he didn't break a leg, or his neck, or his skull.  He's always been lucky like that.  "Fortune's favoured son, that's me," he says, closing his eyes.  "Leave me alone."

He wonders where his earpiece went.  He wonders where the hard drive is.  He wonders what she's doing.  He wishes the morphine wouldn't make it so easy for him to think about the things he usually doesn't.  He loves her.

 

* * *

 

The plane, a Gulfstream tricked out for medical transport, takes him all the way back to London, where he's transferred to a secure medical facility supervised by Six.  There he is subjected to a battery of tests.   It quickly emerges that he's shattered his left humerus, as well as broken his shoulder.  He's cracked two left ribs.  But he's not bleeding internally, and there's no brain or other major organ damage. 

Then they strategise, discussing his body in front of him without allowing him any input.  The shrapnel fragments, while painful, do not present an immediate threat to his life.  His ribs will heal on their own.  The broken arm gets first priority.  They bring in a specialist from Queen Elizabeth's Medical Centre in Birmingham.

"You've been quite lucky," Tanner tells him while they wait.  "But you'll need an operation.  Your humerus in particular is currently in various pieces.  They'll put a couple of screws in, and you'll be good as new."

Bond glances down at his splinted arm, which constantly emits dull throbs of pain even with morphine and pills, and then gives Tanner a level look.  "Good as new," he says flatly.  "Really."

"We are trying to stay optimistic," Tanner says, with an evasive slide of his eyes.

"Got it," Bond says, looking up at the bright white ceiling.  They've got him flat on his back, which is good for his arm and shoulder, but less comfortable for his ribs.  "I really am getting screwed, then."

"007, we're very grateful to you.  We've brought in the best, I assure you.  Only time will tell how much you'll—"

"I'm a big boy, Tanner.  I knew the risks."  Although he can admit to himself, now, that perhaps he thought they would never apply to him: that he would either live or die, nothing in between.  "For God's sake, can someone please just debrief me?"

Tanner looks relieved as he pulls up a chair to Bond's bedside and sits down.  "Our friends in the CIA helped us identify what's left of your attacker.  A ghost named Patrice—no known allegiance or country of origin.  We're still working out who might have hired him.  He's got a beastly track record with the worst sorts all over the globe."

"And the hard drive?"

"You were still holding it when Agent T19 found you and recovered it.  Q branch are inspecting it."

"Under bloody close supervision, I'd hope."

Tanner smiles grimly.  "You'd be right."   

"Ronson didn't make it, did he?"

"No.  I'm sorry."  He sounds as if he means that.

Bond shifts restlessly in the hospital bed, and then really wishes he hadn't.  He gulps down the cry of pain, and then manages, "What do we know about Q?"

"Classified.  Sorry again.  In fact, I'm afraid there's little else I can tell you until we've finished sorting all this out."

"How much has she told you?"

"What?"

"About how it's all connected.  She knows.  Do you?"

Tanner's look is very cool.  "I think it's best if we don't go farther down this road."  He rises from the chair and picks up his briefcase.  "I'll be in touch."

Bond tries to take a deep breath while Tanner walks away, but of course his cracked ribs turn that into torture, so he stops.  Still, though.  Still.  At least she sent Tanner.  Chief of Staff and all.  Bond hasn't been pushed out the door quite yet.  Unless that's just their bloody _gratitude._

He reminds himself that they don't, in fact, owe him gratitude.  He was just doing his job.  That's what they pay him for.  That princely sum.  And who knows?  He smiles grimly.  Nothing says he won't be able to ride a motorbike across the rooftops again.

His surgery begins at seven-thirty p.m. on the dot.  Bond dreads general anaesthesia more than he dreads most things, but even he isn't enough of a masochist to stay awake during bone surgery if he doesn't have to.  They knock him out, and when he wakes up hours later, his arm hurts worse than ever.  His surgeon, a no-nonsense woman in her mid-fifties called Mrs. Timms, tells him that he's the proud new owner of several new screws, wires, and plates, all made of nonreactive material that sounds straight out of a science fiction novel.

"Did you put a tracking device of any kind in me?" he asks.

Timms is completely unruffled—and, he suspects, completely honest—when she says, "No."

"But if you had, I wouldn't be the first."

She raises an eyebrow, and sounds impatient when she says, "I've met my fair share of men like you, and you're luckier than most.  Don't push that luck.  Give yourself time to rest and heal.  Follow your physiotherapy guidelines, or you could delay your recovery, and nobody wants that, do they?"

"I don't know.  Do they?"

"It was a rhetorical question, Mr. Bond.  I appreciate that you're in pain, but stop wasting my time."  He likes her.  "You are healthy and fit, to say the least.  If you don't do anything foolish, or strain yourself too badly, your humerus could be healed within four to six weeks.  Then we would begin physiotherapy."

"And how long 'til full recovery?"

For a moment, Timms hesitates.  "Define 'full.'"

His throat feels thick.  "When I'm ready to fight my next pitched battle on a train."

She frowns.  "Mr. Bond, I don't know exactly what your job is, and I don't want to know.  I cannot answer any specific questions you might have about that.  I'll make my report to your superiors—they're the ones who will make those decisions."

"What about the shrapnel in my shoulder?  It's limiting my range of motion on the other side.  I can feel it when I move.  It hurts."

She doesn't smile, but there's sympathy in her voice.  "I'm sure everything hurts right now."

"I want it out of me.  It's close to the surface.  You could probably just slice it out of me with a scalpel right now, come on, I've had a lot worse."

"If you have, then you can certainly stand to deal with this a while longer," she says tartly.  "I'm not slicing into you with anything right now.  We're done with that for a bit.  Concentrate on letting your arm and shoulder heal.  Step by step." 

He remains in hospital for a week.  On the second day, he is permitted to get out of bed to go to the loo.  On the fourth day, they walk him around the corridors like a show pony.  It hurts.  His arm and shoulder ache constantly.  He didn't break his legs, but he seems to have pulled several muscles during the fight on the train that he didn't even notice.  And then there are his ribs.  He moves gingerly, can't bend or stretch at all, and taking deep breaths is still painful.  They tell him it will be for a while. 

He remembers being confined to a hospital chair after Le Chiffre's torture.  Vesper had been there to help him while away the time, and it had seemed like no time at all.  His injuries had been superficial, in any case, and had healed without consequence.  This, though… well, it's miraculous, really, that this hasn't happened before.  Ridiculous, even, in his line of work.  And it could have been so much worse.  But damned if he doesn't feel emasculated all the same.  At least he feeds himself. 

But all the King's horses, and all the King's men…as the saying goes.  He enjoys looking at himself in the mirror, truthfully.  There's a bump on his head from where he hit the ground, and multiple cuts and scrapes on his face.  His body's covered in bruises, both from the battle and the landing.  He hasn't had a decent shave for days and his eyes are as baggy and bloodshot as if he's coming off a bender.

He knows she won't visit.  Won't even have time to call.  Not with all this business of Q's treason to take care of.  Not that he really knows what's happening.  It's driving him mad to be so out of the loop, far worse than his physical suffering.  A nurse tells him that MI6 get daily updates on his condition, but they sure as hell don't return the favour. 

When the week is up, they send him home, armed with two sorts of painkillers.  Both are addictive, and one has additional sedative properties.  They also tell him he can expect a nurse to arrive later, but he barely takes it in. 

An agent drives him to his flat.  He makes it through his front door unassisted, washes down one of the sedating pills with whisky, and falls asleep on the sofa. 

He wakes, some hours later, to a dull thumping sound.  He cracks one eyelid open and realises that somebody is knocking at the door.  Then he hears a key in the lock.  Damn it.  Where's his gun?  How could…then again, an assassin is hardly likely to knock and then produce a key.

The door cracks open.  A deep male voice says, "Mr. Bond?  It's Atherton.  I'm here with your nurse.  May we come in?"

Atherton.  Bond recognises the name, and the voice, as belonging to one of the many satellites who appeared during his time at hospital.  "I think you'd better," he says, since he's in no shape to greet anybody at the door.

Atherton enters, tall and broad, and taking his ability to walk around completely for granted, as Bond did a week ago.  A young woman pokes her head round the door after him.  Her eyes widen.  Bond can imagine what he looks like, unshaven, sprawled over the couch with his arm in a sling, probably red-eyed from booze and pills. 

"I wasn't planning for company," he says. 

"I thought they'd told you we were sending a nurse," Atherton replies.

"They may have done.  I don't recall."

The young woman darts into the room, carrying a kit of some sort, and he sees she's in uniform.  A skirted one, at that.  "Hello.  I'm Emily.  I've been sent to look after you." 

"I see."  He does.  She can't be more than twenty-five.  She's small and curvy, with dark brown hair and eyes.  A pretty upturned nose.  And in a skirt.  It ends mid-knee, quite professional, but he knows very well that nurses don't usually wear skirts any more.

"May I see your credentials?" he asks.

Atherton coughs.  "Mr. Bond, she's been thoroughly cleared—"

"It's all right."  She gives Bond a wry smile.  "Here's a card.  I just got some, aren't they nice?"

He takes the card with his good hand.  _Emily Sturgis, RGN._ "Very nice.  You must be fresh out of university."

"Not that fresh."  She winces as she looks at him.  "You're not looking so hot, are you."

"Is that your professional diagnosis?"

Atherton breaks in with, "Miss Sturgis, do you feel comfortable here?  I'm afraid I must be getting on to my next appointment."

Bond notices that nobody cares whether he's comfortable.  Emily says, "Oh yes, sir, I think it'll be fine."

"Right.  I'll pick you up at the kerb in two hours.  Mr. Bond."  He nods and leaves without waiting for a reply. 

"Can you sit up?" Emily asks.  She lifts the kit.  "I need to check your bandage and the sutures."  Her eyes slide to the empty Scotch glass on the floor.  "Please tell me that had water in it."

"I don't think we ought to start off our relationship by lying to one another."  He reaches up, grabs hold of the back of the sofa with his right hand, and sits up carefully.  The painkillers still buzzing in his system render the ache in his ribs mercifully dull. 

"When was the last time you ate something?"

"Whatever ghastly thing was on my breakfast tray."  They glance over at the wall clock in unison.  It's half-past two in the afternoon.  "I'm not hungry."

"Then I'll get your arm looked after and make you something for later." 

He's grateful she didn't insist.  "Do you moonlight as a chef?"

"Apparently."  She gives him a resigned smile.  "I'm a good nurse, but I think mainly they sent me because I'm a good cook, too."

Bond might be drugged to the teeth, but he's not stupid. If they sent this pretty young girl in a skirt because she's a good cook, he'll eat his best silk tie.  All of a sudden, he sees M's personal touch in this.  Tanner wouldn't bother.  Neither would anybody else. 

"Waste of your skills and education, that," he says.

"I think so, too.  Bloody annoyed I was, if you want to know.  But—" She shrugs.  "The pay's good, really good.  I even had to get a security clearance."  This time, her smile is more genuine.  She's got dimples.  "Rather exciting, really."

"Yes," he says, unable to keep a bitter edge out of his voice.  "Thrilling."

Her eyes widen, and he tells himself to back off.  It's not her fault that M thinks he can be placated so easily—given a sweetie and sent to bed, as it were. 

"Right," he says, and nods towards his arm as if it's some sort of peace offering.  "Shall we have a look?"

Kneeling on the floor, she ably changes his bandage—scarcely gives him a jostle.  "Are you in a lot of pain at the moment?"

"No."

"Not used to being looked after, are you?"

"No."

"You could do this yourself."  She glances at him through the fall of her hair.  "You don't seem the type to flinch."

"I never flinch," he says softly.

"Then shall I see about giving you a shave?  Or do you want to grow it out?"

"I don't often let women touch my shaving brush.  It's made with extra silvertip badger hair."

"Disappointing.  I would have taken you for a man who shaves with an actual badger.  Perhaps next time." 

"How loaded with promise."

Emily sighs and shakes her head.  "Look, I'm not stupid.  They told me to wear a skirt.  I don't usually.  I know—"

She looks so very young.  "You've got nothing to fear from me," he says.  "Even my good arm hurts these days.  But you don't need to come back.  I'll give a good report of you."

This infuriates her, which pleases him mightily.  "I'll do my bloody job, Mr. Bond.  Nobody's going to scare me or talk me out of that." Then she glares at his arm as if it's been giving her cheek.  "Right.  That looks good.  No sign of infection, everything's clean."  She ably straps him back into his sling and puts her palm to his forehead.  "Not running a temperature.  Also good."  She stands up and brushes down her skirt.  "Let's see what you've got by way of making supper.  May I have a look round the kitchen?"

He nods, and waits.  Less than two minutes later, she pops out of the kitchen with a scowl, and says, "I'm off to do the shopping.  Are you a vegetarian?"

"Would you believe me if I said yes?"

"I would not.  Any allergies?"

"No."  That was one of the many things Six looked for, strangely enough, when selecting the best of the best.  The best of the best couldn't afford to be brought down by eating something that had brushed up against a peanut.

"There's a shop down the corner.  I shan't be long.  You'd be more comfortable if you moved to your bed.  Unless you'd rather stay here and watch…" She looks round his sitting room, and her voice trails off.

"I don't own a television," he says. 

"You don't like TV?"

"I've got nothing against it.  I'm not home very often."  He stands up, and can't repress a hiss.  But everything's still fuzzy.  What the hell's in those pills?  Maybe the Scotch had been a mistake after all, especially on an empty stomach.  "Bed's…not a bad idea."

She looks worried.  "Can you walk?"

"Yeah," he grunts, but it's more like a tortuous shuffle as he gains his bedroom, where he reclines as carefully as possible.  Maybe he should've got a book while he was up.  God, this is a right pain in the arse.  It'll take him a dog's age to bathe, to dress, and he'd only accept a woman's help for both those things if he didn't actually need it.  The idea of leaning on Emily's young shoulders while he lowers his naked hide into the tub is enough to make him shudder.

He hears his front door shut, and then the key turns in the lock.  She'll not leave him undefended, then.  He laughs at the absurdity of it all, and then passes out cold. 

When he wakes, he smells hot food.  She'd made a rather good chicken dish, and she pretends not to notice while he wolfs it down.  She goes through the medications they've given him and double-checks them against a list she's brought with her.  Then she does the washing up, checks him over one more time, and leaves promptly at half-past four.

Wary of that dizzy feeling, he takes the painkiller without a sedative in it, and tries to read in bed.  After five pages, he wants to throw the book across the room, but knows it would be far too much effort to get it back again. 

He looks up at his ceiling.  There's a faint stain in the top left corner.  He's always wondered what caused it.  The flat went on the market after its previous inhabitant was murdered in it, and while that didn't drive down the price, it did thin out the competition considerably.  The thought hadn't disturbed Bond in the least: he doesn't believe in ghosts, and if he did, he's got plenty of his own to chase an interloper away.  But he does think, sometimes, if these walls could talk…

Well, they might ask to be repainted.  Now that he looks, he can see that there's some peeling on the windowsill.  His hardwood floors could do with refinishing, too.  Perhaps when he's feeling better, he can see about—

He'll go mad.  He'll go absolutely raving mad.  Not doing.  Not knowing. 

He'd give his left nut for her to call.  She doesn't.  She won't.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, after an arduous struggle with the bath, he tries calling her instead.  Perhaps he shouldn't—he's not in the best temper—but it doesn't matter, because she doesn't pick up anyway.  He doesn't leave a message.  He shouldn't need to.

Shannon Cartwright calls him back.  M's glacial assistant.  She says that there is no new information in the Q case, but she's been authorised to tell him that the hard drive has been destroyed.

"Where's M?" he asks.

"She's extremely busy, Mr. Bond."

Not 007.  Cartwright has never called him 'Mr. Bond' before.

Emily stops by that afternoon.  Some deliverymen accompany her, carrying an enormous box that has a picture of a television set on it.

"You said you had nothing against it," she points out.  "I'm under strict orders to get you anything you need.  Pretty sure your lot are good for it."  She grins roguishly.  "Mr. Atherton didn't say no, anyway."

He watches the men set the television up across from the sofa.  The box says it's 139 cm, and is apparently 'smart' as well.  "It'll stream online content," she says.

"I've never seen the like," he says, holding the remote in his good hand.  "You have one of these yourself?"

"Oh yes.  Not this big, though.  We love it."

"We?"  Bond quirks an eyebrow at her.  "Lucky fellow.  What's his name?"

"Sara," she says flatly, her posture suggesting that she's ready to take the television, his lunch, and herself right out of his flat if he gives her any crap.

He has to stop himself from laughing out loud.  M meant to send him a sweet bit of fluff to succumb to his charms and keep him happy.  Instead, she sent him a lesbian and bought him an expensive television.

"Tell her I said hello," he says to Emily, and smiles.  It's the least he can do for the only person who seems at all interested in cheering him up.

 

* * *

 

His life falls into a routine.  Emily stops by every day to look after him for two hours.  On some days, she's the only person he speaks to.  When he can't stand his own face anymore, he lets her give him a shave. 

Bond checks back in at the medical facility twice the next week.  After that, he is driven once per week to Birmingham so his surgeon can take personal stock of his progress.  Everything seems to be moving along satisfactorily.  He is in very good health.  He is not pushing things along too fast or impeding his own recovery.  But when he asks for dates, for deadlines, specific goals, everyone becomes very vague.  _Too early to tell_ , they say, or, _Let's not get into hypotheticals_ , or, _We'll just take it one day at a time_.

He reads a lot.  He also starts watching television, and gets hooked on Nigella Lawson.  He tries to watch Emily cook a few times, but she says it puts her off if he just sits there and doesn't say anything; still, she's happy to give certain of Nigella's recipes a go when he asks for them.

After three weeks, when the weather is good enough and his ribs feel better, he goes for short walks—to buy a paper at the corner shop, or out for a coffee—knowing that he is being watched. 

Nobody tells him so, nobody rebukes him for it, but he's pretty sure he takes more pills than he needs to.

These are his days. 

 

* * *

 

Once, he wakes up from a nap on the sofa to see Emily frowning down at him.  "What?" he asks.

"Nothing," she says.  "Only I don't recall giving you permission to talk about me in your sleep."

"Sorry?"

"You were muttering.  You kept saying 'Em.'"  She winces.  "I'm only teasing, you know.  Do you need help with something?"

"I am beyond help," he says.  "Are we trying those lamb kebabs today?"

"Of course," she says.  "Whatever you like."

 

* * *

 


	6. Shaken, Not Stirred

A month after the surgery, Tanner calls and says that Bond is to come back to Vauxhall the next day to debrief.  It's the first time they've spoken since Bond returned in pieces from Istanbul.  He calls Emily and persuades her to come over the next morning before he leaves, instead of in the afternoon.

He drinks a lot of water.  He takes the exact recommended dosage of pills, no more, sets his alarm, and does his best to get a good night's sleep.  He doesn't quite manage it, but some eyedrops in the morning clear up the redness.  He hears Emily arrive just as he finishes his bath, and has her give him a shave.  He's been managing it himself for the past week or so, but he doesn't want to risk any nicks today, or miss any patches.

She trims his nails for him, files them, and shows a prudently light touch with his Ormonde Man.  Her eyes sparkle as if she's helping her best girlfriend get ready for a date, though she's got no idea what he's off to do—it's just a change to the routine, he knows, and she's glad to see him take an interest in something.

Then he has to get dressed.  This marks the first time he and Emily enter his bedroom together: he usually sits biddably on the sofa while she straightens up in there, changing linens and fluffing pillows.  She's never gone in his wardrobe, and her eyes widen at the sight of it.

"Good Lord," she says, eyeing racks and racks of suits, shirts, and shoes.

"I'll need help with the tie."

With more than that, as it happens.  He's spent the last month in sweatpants, slip-on shoes, and baggy shirts, even when he goes out for his walks.  A crisp dress shirt presents a challenge for his arm, which is currently as useless as a puppet's, so she's got to help him into the sleeve.  He suffers the indignity of her drawing up the zip on his trousers so they can make sure the shirt tucks in just so, and then buckling his belt.  They choose the shoes to match, and he polishes the left one, holding it between his knees and keeping a close eye on her as she does the right.  He selects a blue tie, nearly the same colour as his eyes, to go with the navy suit.  It takes three tries before she masters the art of a proper half Windsor.  As he instructs her, he realises that he can learn to do this one-handed, too, and will have to begin practising.

Then he dons his suit jacket, draping it over his injured shoulder and telling himself it will look debonair if he maintains the proper attitude.  Emily takes a step back, and her eyes widen as she takes in the whole picture. 

"Well.  That's, that's nice," she says.

"Thank you."

"You look like a different person.  That's not an insult.  I mean, it's not a compliment either.  It's just an…an observation."  She goes a little red.  "Sorry, I'm not putting it well."

"You haven't exactly been seeing me at my best."  Just then, there's a knock at the door.  "That'll be Atherton."

"I'll make something for you and leave it in the fridge for later.  I can come back round this evening too, if you like."

She is motivated, of course, more by curiosity than genuine concern, although there's some of that as well.  He gives her a half smile, neither accepting nor refusing her offer, and she goes to let Atherton in. 

Stepping back into Vauxhall for the first time in a month feels more like coming home than returning to his flat ever did.  He is not a jovial man, but he finds himself returning nods and smiles as he passes through the corridors. 

His mood takes a turn for the worse, though, when he realises that Atherton is leading him towards Tanner's office, not M's.  Ever since M moved to the crystal ball, Tanner's had his own space where he's not within sight of her every minute of the day.  Bond suspects that he finds this a relief.

And sure enough, Tanner's the only one waiting to greet him.  He tries not to scowl as he extends his right hand.  "Tanner."

Tanner shakes his hand.  "Good to see you, Bond.  You're looking well.  Have a seat."  He does, while Tanner moves over to the sideboard.  "Something to drink?"

He'd kill for a martini.  He'll have to show Emily how to make a decent one.  But he says, "No, thank you."  He looks around the office, trying not to let his restlessness show, trying to take comfort in the smallest things: the way the place smells, the sounds just outside the door.  There's not much to look at outside the window—just a quiet side street.

Tanner blinks at him, and then sounds a little at loose ends when he says, "Right, then," and sits down at his desk.  "Thanks for coming in."

"Pleasure."  Bond narrows his eyes a little.  "It's good to be back, although I'm not sure in what capacity."

"Neither are we, yet."  Tanner folds his hands and regards him steadily across the desk.  "You present a quandary.  We don't want to let you moulder away at home now that you're able to get about.  You're not nearly ready to go back into the field, though, and you'll be wasted at a desk."

For one agonising second, Bond is on the verge of saying that he can answer a phone as well as any other idiot.  He's on the verge of promising _anything_ so long as he can come back to work.  It's not as if it would be forever. 

But Tanner spares his dignity as he says, "If you've no objections, we're thinking of sending you to Fort  Monckton in the meantime.  To look over the new recruits, supervise them, instruct them."

Well.  That was unexpected.   Bond blinks.  Then he glances down at his arm.  "Presumably in hand-to-hand combat."

Tanner's laughs always sound forced, even when they're not.  It's hard to tell.  "It's no use pretending you're not a figure of legend, Bond.  They'll be queuing up to learn from you.  Surely you have something to offer the next wave."

Because his own wave has long since crashed against the sand and is retreating steadily back out to sea.  "I'm not sure how inspiring I'll be," he says.  "How does it go?  'Those who can, do, and those who can't, teach'?"

Tanner sighs, as if he'd expected no better.  "Then what do you want to do?"

Bond blinks again.  Nobody's asked him that for years.  He generally does what he wants to do anyway, but nobody ever asks him what that might be. 

"I want to see M," he says. 

Tanner frowns.  "That's not possible today."

"Then when?"

Tanner shrugs.  "It's up to her.  I have no idea, honestly.  When she wants to speak to you, she will."  Bond stares at him.  Tanner stares right back.  "I'm not sure what other answer you were expecting."

"Why won't she speak to me?" Bond says.  "This is bloody ridiculous.  It doesn't make any sense.  I'm here, aren't I?  It's why I came, isn't it?"

That was a mistake.  It came out all wrong.  Or—it didn't, and that's the problem.  Tanner replies, "You're here because you're an agent of MI6 and you were ordered to report."

"Ordered by you?  To report to you?"

"I hope this isn't about to get ugly, Bond," Tanner says mildly.

"Oh, for God's—just tell me what's happening.  I'll go and talk to your sodding recruits 'til I'm blue in the face.  All right?  Now tell me about Q, and Chongqing, and whatever else there is to tell.  I can't think why you wouldn't."

Tanner sits back in his chair.  He says quietly, "All right.  The sad truth is, there's not much to tell.  Q left no trail, no evidence of motive.  The best I can do for you is retrace the events of the day you were injured."

"It'd be a start."

"This is all forensics, you understand, as there was nobody left to question.  But based on the scene, we surmise that Q surprised Ronson in the middle of interrogating Stavros Kara with two other agents.  The man you fought, Patrice, arrived moments later.  There was a firefight.  The bullets in both Q and Kara came from Ronson's gun.  We believe that Patrice shot Ronson and one of the agents; Q was responsible for killing the other agent."

"Not very useful, were they?"

Tanner smiles grimly.  "Not very.  Patrice shot Ronson, incapacitating him, and left him to bleed out.  Q had the laptop with him.  Patrice removed the hard drive and fled with it just moments before you arrived.  The rest you know."

"And that's it.  No idea of who turned Q, or what the devil it has to do with Chongqing?"  He's never been to Chongqing.  But he's beginning to think of it as a sort of code word for everything that's recently gone wrong with his life.

"As I said, there's not much to tell.  We'll keep you updated as we learn more.  We owe that to you."

Finally, someone admits it.  It's still not satisfying.  "Right," Bond says, looking up at the ceiling.  "So when are you packing me off to Portsmouth?"

"Whenever you're ready.  They can be ready for you as soon as tomorrow evening.  It'll be a small matter to arrange for you to have an assistant if you want one."

"Don't suppose I can bring Emily along."

"Who?  Oh, the nurse."  Tanner smiles wryly.  "You don't change, do you?"

Bond ignores this.  "What sort of schedule am I looking at here?"  He anticipates that the more he recovers, the less inspiration he will be required to give to the next generation.

Tanner shrugs.  "It's fluid.  You won't be living there full time—perhaps three days per week, if you don't mind the back and forth.  Portsmouth's only a couple of hours away, and I'm not certain they can keep you occupied all week.  Besides, you're due to begin physiotherapy next week, and that'll be here, in London."

In his experience, 'physiotherapy' is a kind word for 'torture.'  But Bond remembers trying, and failing, to get his left arm into his sleeve.  It's as if it's not even a part of his body any more, as if someone's come in and robbed his house.  The sooner he takes care of that, the better. 

Tanner opens a folder.  Bond can see that it contains pictures of X-rays, as well as lots of notes.  "Looks as if your arm and shoulder are healing properly.  Are you still experiencing that numbness and weakness in your left hand?"

Of course they know everything.  "Yes," Bond says. 

"Well," Tanner says absently, "that's only to be expected with that sort of nerve damage."

Bond says nothing.  After a second or two, he's also certain that his face is perfectly blank.

"Tomorrow, then," Tanner continues, looking up from the folder.  "To Fort Monckton for three days.  Might as well pack a bag, if you're certain you're up to it."

"I might as well," Bond agrees around a dry mouth. 

"And Bond," Tanner says, "she's really not in her office today.  Just go home."

Tanner might be lying.  He might not be.  It doesn't matter.  Bond takes his leave, and then takes the secret lift down to where Atherton waits for him.

As they drive through town, he thinks about how he has never heard the words 'nerve damage' applied to himself until a few minutes ago.  He can't help but wonder why not. 

Atherton drops him off, and Bond finds himself in an echoingly silent flat.  He opens up his laptop and starts Googling, eventually crawling through restricted medical databases that supposedly require a paid subscription.  He's encrypted everything, uses an IP anonymiser, but knows that MI6 can monitor everything he does if they feel like it.  So, if anyone is so inclined, they will read the search terms 'nerve damage,' 'nerves in hand,' 'numbness in hand,' 'nerve damage humerus break,' and so on.   

Apparently any number of nerves can be damaged by a broken humerus and/or shoulder.  The axillary nerve.  The radial nerve.  The median nerve.  The ulnar nerve.  The humerus is clearly a very nervous creature.  And these nerves control any number of important functions, of course, such as sensitivity.  And movement. 

His left hand hasn't been moving so well.  It takes considerable effort to flex it, and it's nowhere near full strength.  He'd assumed that would clear up as his bones knitted, though in hindsight, perhaps that wasn't totally logical.  Still, though, nobody told him it's a problem, certainly not that it could be a permanent one. 

Damaged, he thinks, a damaged left hand.  In his profession, it might as well be a useless left hand.  And who knows what else?  His forearm too, maybe.  There are nerves in that, too.  Useless left hand, weak and helpless left arm, it still aches all the time and he can't do anything with it.  And his right arm isn't any great shakes, either.  He still feels the shrapnel when he moves, even with painkillers. 

By the time he looks up, it's nearly five o'clock in the afternoon.  Where did the day go?  His stomach rumbles and he realises he's had nothing to eat all day.  He skipped breakfast so he could get ready on time. 

Emily's left him some chicken salad.  It's very good.  There's some soup as well, unlabelled in a container—looks like tomato—but he leaves it alone.  He might let her warm it up for him later, when she stops by, if she does.  She'd said she might. 

Halfway through the chicken salad, he throws his fork down and goes to his bedroom.  He sits down on the bed, yanks off his tie, and unbuttons his shirt one-handed.  The cuffs too.  Then he takes off his sling, shrugs out of the shirt with his right shoulder, and slides the shirt sleeve down his useless left arm as if he were undressing a mannequin in a store.  It might as well not be part of him at all.

On goes the sling.  He's careful, but the movement hurts.  Everything hurts.  Then he opens the drawer of his bedside table, where he keeps a knife, and heads to the sink in the bathroom. 

In the mirror, he fixes his eyes on the mark where the shrapnel hit his shoulder.  He wants it out of him.  He wants it gone. 

He's just raised the knife and pressed the edge to his flesh when he hears the key in the door.  He closes his eyes, sighs, and lowers the knife again.  He can just imagine the look on Emily's face.  Still—she's been more understanding than he'd expected.  She might help him.  Hell, and she's got all that stuff in her medical kit, alcohol and gauze and whatnot.  If he puts the question to her in the proper way…

He drops the knife in the sink and heads out to the living room just as the door closes.  "Listen," he says.  "I've got an unusual request."

M sets her handbag down on the table next to the sofa and raises her eyebrows.  "Yes?" she asks.  Then her eyes widen as she gets a good look at him without his shirt.

For a moment they just stare at each other.  Bond wonders if perhaps he's dreaming, a hallucination brought on by the sedative pills.

"Where the hell have you been?" he rasps.

She purses her lips, looking him up and down.  "Busy.  As are you, apparently.  Have I come at a bad time?"  Her hand moves back towards her handbag. 

"Don't," he says, and takes a deep breath.  Calm.  Reasonable.  He can be these things.  "It's…fine."

Her hand hovers over the bag, and then pulls back.  She looks at him, and then says, "You thought I was the nurse, I presume."

"Well—yes."

"Dare I ask about that 'unusual request'?"

If she's jealous, she's hiding it beautifully behind that smirk.  The universe is clearly determined to make a joke of him.  He won't let her join in the fun.  He sighs and rubs the back of his head before saying, "You don't want to know.  Have a seat."  She sits—perches, really—on one of his armchairs and folds her hands in her lap.  "Do you want a drink?"

"No.  I wouldn't mind if you put on some clothes, though."

He stomps off, and a few moments later, returns to the sitting room having wrapped himself in a dressing gown, only draping it over his wounded arm.  He knows it looks ridiculous, especially since he's still in his trousers and shoes, but it takes too much time and effort to wrestle on a shirt while a lady's waiting on him, or M is. 

Then he sits down on the sofa.  "Well," he says.

"Are you packed?" she asks.

"Packed?"

"Tanner told me you'd agreed to go to Fort Monckton tomorrow."

Oh.  He'd forgotten all about that.  "So I did.  What else did Tanner tell you?"

"What else is there to tell?  You spoke to him for all of five minutes and then went home.  I rather feel as if you deserve an apology for coming all that way, for so little time."

"Ah," he says.  "You came here to apologise?  For that?"

"I haven't come here to apologise for anything."

Her eyes are as cool as they've ever been, her voice controlled; and yet she looks close to leaping out of that chair and heading for the door.  She hasn't even taken off her coat.  It would be something to send M scurrying for cover.  That would really be a sight. 

If only he could stop eating her up with his eyes.  It's been a month without a word, without a glance.  But she's here now.

"Tanner told me there's nerve damage to my arm.  Nobody else told me that.  The doctors didn't," Bond says.

She doesn't prevaricate.  "There was no reason to upset you until we know more."

He looks down at his arm in the sling and manages, weakly, to wiggle his fingers.  It's the best he can do.  "I've been looking it up.  Apparently this could be permanent."

"Or it couldn't.  You haven't even started physiotherapy yet," she says in exasperation.  "This is why I didn't want to tell you.  Self-pity isn't a good look on you."  Her lips quirk.  "The dressing gown is an improvement, though, I must say."

And he's not allowed to comment on her appearance?  "I beg your pardon," he says.  "The dressing gown is not an improvement on my bare chest.  I have eyewitness testimony to back me up on this."

She snorts.  "I'm sure."  Then silence falls.  For the first time in their history, it's awkward. 

Finally he says, "Are you going to tell me what's going on?  Is that why you're here?"

"Tanner debriefed you." 

"With an emphasis on 'brief,' as you said yourself."

"He told you everything that he knows."  She glances around restlessly and then stands up.  "I think I will have that drink.  Do you mind?"  He makes to stand up, but she waves him down.  "I can manage."

Then she fusses about at his sideboard as if this is her flat, too, with the ease of long familiarity.  He blurts, "Have you been in here before?"

Taking a bottle of bourbon from the cabinet, she looks at him with a raised eyebrow.  "It'd be pretty cheeky of you to be offended, wouldn't it?  No, I haven't.  I've got better things to do than poke round my agents' houses when they're not home."

She looks back at the bourbon and puts it down, shaking her head.  She reaches into the cabinet again, and this time pulls out the Stoli Elit, followed by the Gordon's and the Lillet.  Then she picks up the martini shaker and gives him a challenging look. 

He narrows his eyes.  "Be my guest."

She pours the measures precisely, makes a quick detour into the kitchen for ice, and comes back out vigorously rattling the shaker.  "I interrupted your supper?"

He remembers the half-finished chicken salad sitting on the table.  "Not really.  Are you trying to break that martini's neck or something?"

"One more word out of you and you'll be wearing yours." 

He nods and watches.  Nigella never makes proper martinis.  All her cocktails are festive little flavoured things for parties. 

M strains the liquid into two martini glasses on the sideboard.  Then, to his astonishment, she reaches into her coat pocket and produces a lemon that she has also, apparently, liberated from the kitchen.  From her other pocket, she produces a penknife, and zips off two thick curls of lemon peel, dropping them neatly into each glass. 

He only realises his mouth is actually open when she smirks at him.  But she says nothing as she sets down both knife and lemon, and gives him his glass.  She raises her own glass to her lips, looking into his eyes the whole time as he takes a sip.

Perfect.  It's dry, a little bitter, and the nectar of the gods.  He should have known.  "Well?" she asks.

"I've never wanted you more," he says, keeping enough of a taunt in his voice that she might let him get away with telling the truth again.  After all, this is his territory, not hers, and if she thinks to be treated like the Queen here, she's got another think—

She quirks an eyebrow and says, "Never?" 

Then, while he's struggling to recover, she strolls past him to look out the window.  The sun is getting lower in the sky.  "You don't have a bad view," she observes.

Bond pulls himself together, and says, "Mm.  It's not as good as yours used to be."  He remembers the splendour of her former penthouse.  She'd moved into a more modest townhome after her husband's death, with no explanation to anyone.  Bond can think of a few reasons, though.  First and foremost is that when one has been wholly abandoned, rooftops are far too tempting.

"Save your farthings," she says.  "You'll get there someday."  But her tone is absent, almost distant.  She's working her way up to something.  Bond continues to sip his Vesper—he doesn't think he could come up with a signature cocktail for M, though it might be worth a try.  He waits.

She says, "I know you think I'm keeping back the big answer to it all, but we haven't got one.  Ronson killed Q.  And left us with nothing."

The accusation in her voice rouses a dormant instinct in him, almost a protective one, for a man he barely knew but had called comrade.  "He was doing his job.  It was a firefight.  These things happen in action."

"Spare me his defence," M says coldly.  "The facts are as they are."

"He died doing his duty."  Bond's left arm aches. 

"I never said he didn't.  Don't, James."  She holds up a finger.  "Don't tell me how to memorialise one of my own.  If you think you know anything about it, you're wrong."  She looks down into her glass.  "Be thankful I've only got to write one obituary, not two."

"Oh, was T19 ever in that much danger?" he asks.

He expects a scornful retaliation that never comes.  Instead she keeps looking out of the window, resolutely refusing to show him her face.  She says, "Eve Moneypenny has some of the best marksmanship scores in the Service."

"Sorry?"

"Agent T19."

"Ah."  He stands up.  "She did come awfully close to hitting that Patrice bloke a few times.  Even when he was running."

"Yes," M sighs.  Bond finishes his martini, sets the glass down, and wanders towards her.  He remembers the last time they looked out a window together, down on the darkened Thames.

As he arrives at her side, M says, "I could have told her to take the shot.  I nearly did."  She finally turns to him, but she looks at his left arm, hidden beneath the silk dressing gown.  "I daresay she could have hit him.  Might have saved us all some trouble."

"Might have."  He doesn't remember it quite that way, though.  "We'll never know.  Why didn't you?"

"I made a judgment call.  I believed you could do your job."

"I did.  I always do," he says, stung instead of soothed.

"Yes.  That's my point."  She looks into his eyes.  "You need to understand this, 007.  Whatever comes of it—your arm, and so on—taking back that hard drive is the most important mission you have ever completed.  You probably saved dozens of our people, and that's leaving the rest of NATO aside."

He sticks his tongue in his cheek and looks out the window, unable to meet her gaze.  "So I went out on a high note?"

She growls, "For Christ's sake," and tosses back the rest of her drink.  Then she makes a face.  "I don't understand why you like these bloody things so much.  At any rate, I'd best be off.  I should pack a bag if I were you; the car will call round in the—"

"Why'd you tell me her name?"

A beat passes, and she says, "I don't know.  Perhaps I thought you might find it interesting information."

"Well, I don't."  He pauses and adds, "I like your name, though.  It suits you."

She glares at him.  "I've never liked it."

"I don't see why not."

She regards him for a long moment.  For the first time, he notices that she's wearing a redder lip, and her earrings are sparkly curly things instead of pearls.  And her hair's neater. 

His heart stops.  She dressed for him, too.  What's she got on underneath that coat she's refusing to take off?  Is there a way to ask that won't involve her breaking his other arm? 

Before he can think of one, she says briskly, "It doesn't matter what you see.  Good evening, Bond."  She turns on her heel—she's wearing pointy-heeled boots, not the frumpy—he can think of a line, he just knows he can.  He can always think of a line.  He only needs a second to…

He hears the sound of a key in the door that's not locked. 

Bloody hell, Bond thinks, as Emily pops in, all smiles.  "Hello!" she says.  "How'd it go?" Then she stops when she sees M.  "Oh.  Sorry.  Am I interrupting?" 

"Not at all," M says, walking briskly towards the door and picking up her handbag.  "I was just leaving." 

Emily's eyes take in the sight of Bond wearing his dressing gown over his trousers, and they get wider and wider.  "Oh.  Right." 

"You must be Mr. Bond's nurse," M says, coming to a stop, presumably because Emily still hovers in the doorway. 

"What?  Oh.  Yes, I am."  Emily steps to the side with alacrity.  "Are you, um, are you—"

"An acquaintance," M says with a thin smile. 

"Oh.  Of course.  Well, it's very nice to meet you, ma'am," Emily says respectfully.

M's lips quirk.  "The pleasure's all mine. What a lovely, polite young lady you are."

Bond and Emily look at each other, and experience one of those rare moments of perfect accord that can occur between two people at exactly the right moment.  "Good evening, Emily.  How's Sara?" he asks.

Emily sighs.  "She's on about babies again.  In vitro.  As if we can afford it.  What's wrong with just enjoying our twenties, that's what I want to know."  She shakes her head and flounces off to the kitchen.

Bond glances back at M, who betrays herself only with a slight tightening around the corners of her mouth.  He permits himself to give her a smile that's almost sunny. 

"She's a treasure," he says, low enough that Emily won't hear. 

"Indeed.  Seems as if you've lucked out."

"Why does everyone insist on calling me lucky?" 

"Why do you persist in believing you're not?"

"I never said I wasn't.  I wouldn't dare."  Then he adds casually, "Will you be stopping by again?"

"I might," she snaps, and does a bit of a flounce herself as she leaves.

When the door closes, he actually chuckles.  She didn't take off her coat, but that was perhaps more than he could reasonably expect. 

Just then, Emily pokes her head out of the kitchen.  "You didn't like the chicken salad?" she asks, sounding a little crestfallen. 

"It was delicious.  I was interrupted."  Several hours ago, but still.  "That soup looked rather good."

"I'll warm it up."  She hesitates, biting her lip.  "Mr. Atherton told me that you're going away tomorrow?"

He feels a pang of remorse, as well as embarrassment, because somehow he'd managed to forget that yet again.  "Yes.  I'll be gone a few days each week.  Help me pack."

"Sure.  That woman?"

Bond tenses, and lets a bit of warning into his tone.  "Yes?"

"Family?  I'm sorry, I don't want to pry, I just see the resemblance, is all."

He nearly gawps.  "The what?"

"Oh, you just seem so much alike.  Apart from the height," she laughs.  "But mainly the eyes.  You both have such blue eyes.  Can't be a coincidence."

"Can't it?"

"No, of course not."  She wags a knowing finger at him before disappearing back into the kitchen.  She calls back, "That's where you can tell everything about people, you know.  It's all in the eyes."

 

* * *

 

Bond lies awake that night, the bottle of sedative painkillers on his bedside table waiting to be useful.  He delays taking them; he's been in rather a good mood for a few hours at a stretch now, and he wants to prolong it. 

She'd come to him.  That had been unexpected.  He's broken into her house, barged into her office, surprised her at parties, but always, he comes to her.  The only time she's ever chased him to ground was when she tried to arrest him in Bolivia.  Not quite the same.

For the first time in too long, he feels a stirring  in his loins, a pulse of warmth and interest.  It's hard to feel randy when pain lurks constantly on the edge of awareness, and at any rate, he's had no opportunities.  The last orgasm he had was when he jerked off thinking about M over a month ago. 

He sighs in resignation.  Second verse, same as the first, he thinks, as he takes himself in hand.  It's not going to be all that good—he's got a tube of lubricant in the drawer, but that'd be too much of a pain in the arse to fumble with one-handed.  But he can't not do this.

She probably knew he would.  She certainly knows he's done it before, with the way he'd hissed at her in the darkness, told her his dreams of fucking her here.  He might as well have painted _You've nearly made me wank myself to death_ on his forehead.  And then she'd let him suck on her come-covered fingers, which suggests to him that she's not wholly opposed to the idea.

Bond lets it happen.  He gives himself two good hands, of course, and puts M right in his lap while he sits up against the pillows.  Easier to kiss that way, especially with the height difference.  He likes kissing, and he'd loved kissing her.  It was the very first thing he'd done when he'd followed her home and practically bowled her over, a starving man breaking into a banquet hall. 

He winces, not just from a twinge in his arm, but from the acid sting of shame.  No.  Not his finest hour, that.  Best to keep it entirely to fantasy.

Right, then.  He puts her back in his lap, puts his two good arms round her, and kisses her.  Then he lets his mouth travel down across her throat, her shoulder, farther down still until she arches her back.  He hears the echo of her husky groan as he buries his face in her glorious tits, kissing and sucking.  He hadn't seen them, but he'd felt them, soft and heavy, her nipples rubbing against his chest while she panted for air.  He remembers that so clearly, the way she'd clung to him in the dark.  M's naked body, as close as could be, and still beyond reach. 

He could have made her fall apart if she'd given him the chance.  He knows that much.  The aphrodisiac would have played into it, of course, but even so—he'd felt every electric crackle, every shudder, when he'd kissed her mouth, her throat and shoulders.  He'd heard her whimper, felt the tremble of her lips against his temple and cheek.  Her nails had scraped against his scalp, dug into his shoulders.  She hadn't given herself to him, but she'd given herself away.

"Now," he whispers to the phantom in his lap, squeezing his cock as he imagines sliding one finger inside her, then two.  He pictures her face, fierce with desire, as it had been in her sitting room.  "You like that, don't you?"

She sighs, trembles, kisses him again.  He takes hold of her hips, lifting her; she reaches down and grips his cock, putting him in just the right place—she's hot and wet, right there against him, and he's already so fucking close it's embarrassing, he's…

Bond's hand stops moving.  He hasn't taken an aphrodisiac, he'll only be good for one come.  He doesn't want to waste it.  But he's aching, desperate, can't bear to hold off any more—his hips buck and twitch into his hand.  He's leaking, and it feels so good to smear it around, moving his foreskin back and forth while pleasure zings up and down his spine.

"You know what I want," he growls to M.

"Know your place," she whispers, just as she did that night.

His imagined self, with two good arms and in peak condition, lifts her off him and seats her on the edge of the bed.  Then he kneels before her and knows his place, his rightful place.  She grabs his head, grinds against his mouth, making all the wanton noises he can't forget as she demands satisfaction from him.  No one else can give her what she needs.  He knows that taste, he knows that smell—

He unravels her.  He remembers the cry she gave when she brought herself off, and lets the memory ring in his ears as he comes.  His own groan shocks him.  Oh, _oh,_ he hadn't thought it would be so good.

Or so copious.  In the aftermath, heaving for breath, he looks in resignation at the mess he's going to have to clean up with one hand.  Well, it has been a month.  He's pretty sure he hasn't gone this long without in thirty years.

As he clumsily employs a tissue, he smiles ruefully.  She'd said she might come back.  He can't count on that—but he can't write it off, either.  He knows her well, he knows her better than anyone, and yet she can surprise him whenever she wants. 

Of course, he can return the favour.  "Olivia, you minx," he chuckles, and takes his nightly pill.  He's already had the spoonful of sugar, so it goes down easily enough.

 

* * *

 


	7. Give the Other Fellow Hell

As  the car drives him to Portsmouth the next morning, Bond reflects.  He has no nostalgia for Monckton, no sentimental fondness, but he can't deny it changed his life.

He remembers his own training quite clearly.  Plucked from the Navy, he was used to the outward forms of obedience, even as he seethed with rebellion.  MI6 made him walk an even finer tightrope over disaster; he was encouraged to think on his feet, make his own choices, use his own discretion—to a point.  He was also told to be nameless, faceless, submit himself body and soul to the Service.  And yet, when he failed to do this, he wasn't always slapped down.  So long as his results were good enough.

He always had good results.  The best. 

They set him loose in 1999.  He was thirty-one.  His assignments were dull: chiefly monitoring, surveillance, reconnaissance.  It struck him as a spectacular waste of his considerable gifts.  He was at his strongest and most fit, why not use him for more than a walking security camera?  He had an aptitude for learning about technology as it developed, wasn't afraid of computers.  He could keep a cool head.  He could think sideways as well as backwards and forwards, he knew how to come at a problem that couldn't be solved by conventional means.  He was never afraid to dirty his hands.  He spent a lot of time being frustrated, spinning his wheels, wondering if he should have stayed in the Navy.

 _Wait your chance, pay your dues,_ they said, _Buggins's turn, and all that._   But life was too short to wait on Buggins, and the stakes too high.  Wasn't this work important?  Did Six want him to give of his best, or not?

Then, after Bond had been in the field for a year, the head of the Service died in office.  A heart attack at his desk—happened all the time, apparently.  _M is dead,_ everyone whispered, _long live M._

But there wasn't a new M yet.  An array of candidates appeared and speculation ran rife.  Those in the know held that it would come down to the section chief of VH in Rio, or the current Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. 

A full week passed while MI6 waited for guidance.   Then a decision was reached.  Bond was in Kazakhstan with his doomed partner when it happened. 

"Habemus papam," said Ted Rell, who would be shot in four days.  "So who is it?  VH, right?  They're bound to go with VH."

They didn't.  Out of nowhere, a dark horse came up from behind and took the cup.  The former head of Station H (who'd been spinning her own wheels since the handover) became the first female M in history.  Everyone said it was a farce, a mere nod to political correctness.  Nothing to do with qualifications.  She was under a microscope before she even began. 

Bond picked up the gossip as it came to him, though he wasn't terribly interested.  She had no children, having married quite late in life, in her mid-fifties.  Some old buffer of a diplomat she'd picked up in Hong Kong, a divorcee who was a good ten years her senior.  People said that was a farce, too.  Unmarried, discreet in her private life, and maintaining a really butch haircut, well…you had to draw a limit, didn't you, about whom you were going to promote.  She had to make herself respectable, they said, because no dyke was going to run the Service.  So she put a ring on her finger in case the top spot ever became available, and what do you know, it eventually did. 

Bond knows, now, that M had loved her husband.  At the time, he'd neither known nor given half a damn.  There was a change in the regime, and that meant opportunities.  He didn't (and still doesn't) consider himself an ambitious man.   But he wanted work, real work.  He vowed to keep his ear to the ground.

Then, only four days later, the ground shook.  He and Rell were scouting in Kokshetau when some local players decided they didn't like being scouted.  They were chased into an empty block of flats and returned fire through the windows until Rell went and got himself shot in the throat, leaving Bond to fight alone.  The situation was hopeless: their briefing was sensitive enough that MI6 would officially distance itself from it.  Legally, officially, they weren't supposed to be there. 

It had been his first real firefight.  Bond remembers clearly the wild exhilaration, the sure knowledge that he'd found his niche.  He didn't mourn Rell, not exactly, he'd scarcely known him.  But by hook and crook he'd fought his way out of there, stolen a car, and fled Kokshetau, but not before stopping by the head player's house and nicking his little black book to take with him.

He didn't see her after that, but he was promoted, and he knew that his new boss was a woman who valued risk and courage.  He was given more dangerous assignments, more sensitive work, and he thrived on it: on the adrenaline, the women, the chase, the lot.  He never expected to see forty. 

In the meantime, the new M set about putting her stamp on the department.  People stopped muttering about political correctness.  They started whispering about temperatures instead: cold, iceberg, subzero.    

He was thirty-seven when he came face to face with her for the first time.  How strange that he doesn't remember more about what was, in hindsight, the pivotal moment of his adult life.  Everything boils down to the bland, almost bored facial expression with which she greeted him.  She'd looked into his eyes, crooked one dismissive eyebrow, and let her gaze drift away as if she'd already forgotten him.  Didn't say a word.  But the next week, he was promoted again. 

After that, he saw more of her, enough to know that she was pleased with him, although he got the occasional third-party reprimand for being reckless.  He had never really cared about pleasing anyone before, but then, he'd never needed anything from anyone before, either. 

Eventually, finally, he was summoned into her office and given the brief for his first two kills.  And not a couple of nobodies, either—one of them was a rogue section head.  His heart had never beaten so hard.  Her voice was clipped and cool when she gave him his instructions, and he experienced a wrench of desire so strong that he can still feel it when he thinks about it.  Not sexual, not yet—it was just the full-throttled tug of longing for _everything_ that being a double-oh, the best of the best, could give him. 

He'd thought, in those days, that wanting everything from M wasn't anything to be afraid of.

He was thirty-nine.  Now he's forty-five.  Living, he thinks, on borrowed time.

 

* * *

 

His accommodations at Fort Monckton are comfortable enough.  Certainly more comfortable than when he'd actually been in training.  He's been given a room with handicapped facilities, which makes him see red at first—he's got a broken arm, that's all, aren't there plenty of men in the world with broken arms?  It's not as if he's in a wheelchair.  But then he figures out that this chiefly means the room has a lot more space than other rooms on the floor, especially in the bathroom, and decides to hold his tongue. 

The following three days are surprisingly engaging.  On the first morning, Colonel Markson takes him on a tour and shows him how much the place has changed, and how little.  Bond feels no longing for the track, the boxing ring, and the exercise rooms, but the sight of the firing range makes his mouth water.  He knows he shouldn't—the shrapnel in his shoulder renders his right arm less steady than it should be, and anything stronger than a mild recoil would jar him enough to make his left arm hurt like the devil.  But…perhaps when nobody is looking, after curfew or something, he could…

That afternoon, he is introduced to a select few recruits who have steel in their eyes.  His inheritors, he knows.  The next crop of double-ohs, if they play the game right.  They see his arm in a sling, and don't even blink.  He knows exactly what they're thinking: it's an aberration, a modest bump in the road—it's either something that won't stop him returning to duty, or something that will never happen to them.  He'd have thought the same thing too. 

"We'll be grateful for any guidance, 007," one of them says, and for his part, Bond is so grateful to hear his designation that it takes him a few moments to realise he has no guidance to give them.  Hopefully, over the next two days, he'll think of something. 

"I'm happy to answer questions," he says, in lieu of anything profound or life-altering.  Their eyes go hooded and cautious, and he thinks, Of course.  They'll never ask their questions in front of one another.  It's been a long time since he's been so cautious, so competitive. 

"Ask your questions, if you have them," he says coldly.  "Slit the throats of your enemies, not your allies.  You're training to be resources, not individuals.  Knowledge that benefits one of you will benefit all of you, and MI6 aren't interested in nurturing a crop of prima donnas."

Even as the words fall out of his mouth, he can't believe he's saying them.  He knows that every syllable will be reported back to M.  If anything can make her laugh, that'll do it.  For hours. 

After a silent moment, one young woman raises her hand.  "I've been wondering about diplomacy, sir."

Bond blinks.  Not really his area.  "What about it?"

"What you do when it fails, sir."

"Ah," Bond says.   "Depends.  How many bullets have I got?"

He works with them almost exclusively over the course of the next two days.  He likes them more than he expected to, more than he should, and he realises he couldn't do M's job, or even Tanner's.  If watching Ronson die hadn't convinced him of that already, this would.  It's not the sort of dirty work he's suited for.  He cannot send his comrades—his students—off to die.  For all that they must think of themselves as resources, he finds that he can't quite manage that himself, not when he sees their lean and hungry looks that remind him so much of his own time at the bottom of the ladder.

On the third night, when he is due to return to London the next morning so he can begin his physiotherapy, he makes his solitary way to the firing range.  It is a useful exercise, he tells himself.  It'll be handy to be able to tell a doctor, a therapist, or whoever, about what his range of motion currently is.  He's been given a key-card that lets him have access to all the training facilities.  When he arrives, he sees that the range is empty.  Sensible, since it's ten-thirty p.m. 

He has another Walther PPK with him.  The one he usually keeps in his desk drawer at home.  He takes a pair of ear muffs from the rack by the door, awkwardly dons them, stops in front of the first target dummy, and spends a few moments just looking at the gun. It feels like an old friend in his hand—or would, if his right palm weren't unnervingly damp. 

The first bullet goes wide.  It misses the target completely, although at least it hits the board and not the wall behind.  He stares at it, not wanting to believe the evidence of his eyes, both of his shoulders aching from the recoil. 

He tries again.  This time, he can see the barrel of the gun shake.  He can almost feel the shrapnel grinding in his shoulder.  The shot doesn't hit the target.

Stupid—how often does he really fire when he's standing still like this?  He's usually running, or dodging, or crouching, or… He's better when he moves.  So he holds the Walther out and marches forward, firing repeatedly, ignoring the jarring pain in both arms, until he lands three shots in the ten ring.  By then, he's standing only seven feet away.

His right hand is shaking so hard he nearly drops the gun.  Perhaps he won't tell the physiotherapist about this after all. 

He doesn't sleep well, and when he wakes in the morning, he's far more sore than usual.  Brilliant.  He takes his full dosage of pain pills—he's been getting by on less—and tries not to be surly at breakfast with Markson, who congratulates him on his first three days with the 'cream of the crop.' 

"You'll be back next week, then?" he adds.

"Seems like it," Bond says, looking at the wall past Markson's shoulder.

"Good, good.  And for how many weeks after?  Until you return to field work, I suppose?"

"Perhaps.  Anything can happen.  Anything at all."

When the car brings him back to London, it takes him straight to his physiotherapy appointment.  The therapist, a young man named George, sits him down on the edge of an examination bed, and takes his own seat on a stool next to him.  "So," he says, looking through the file, "you sustained your injury just over four weeks ago." 

"Yes."

"Which is pretty much the absolute minimum required before we can begin therapy," George sighs.  "They always try to shove you lot back into action as soon as possible."

"Inexplicable."

"These X-rays are nearly a week old.  We're working with such a compressed timespan—I want more recent ones.  If you'll follow me, please?"

Twenty minutes later, they're looking at the most up-to-date picture of Bond's bones available.  George says, "Well, it's healing as well as can be expected, I'll say that for you."

"I attribute it to clean living."

George frowns at his folder.  "There's a fair bit in here about nerve damage.  At some point, I'll want another EMG, perhaps in the next couple of weeks."

"Who's stopping you from getting one?"

George gives him a startled glance.  Then he narrows his eyes.  "I don't suppose it would help if I pointed out that you won't return to duty until I give the all-clear."

"I don't suppose it would," Bond agrees.  "I might even say it'd get us off on the wrong foot entirely."

George presses his lips together, then sighs again.  "And your nurse gave a good report of you, too.  Said you were cooperative.  Very pleasant."

Bond gives him a very unpleasant smile.  "She's never tried to keep me from my vocation."

"Mr. Bond, I'm not trying to keep you from anything.  I'm here to help you."

 _007,_ he wants to say, _I'm bloody 007._ They called him that at Fort Monckton.  He misses it already.  "Let's get this over with." 

"Right," George says.  "Will you remove your sling for me, please?"

He watches like a hawk.  Bond tries to remove the sling in his usual way, neither taking exaggerated care, nor rushing to prove his agility.  As the sling comes off, George carefully catches his arm with both hands before it can drop like the dead weight it's become.  Bond doesn't particularly enjoy looking at it.  Even though it's only been a month, it's already lost muscle mass; it strikes him as spindly, pathetic. 

"Let's get some measurements," George says.  "It's important to monitor your progress from session to session."  He carefully moves Bond's arm up and down, back and forth, occasionally pausing to take notes about degrees and angles.  At the end, he says, "I'm surprised your range of motion isn't just a little better.  You're stiffer than you should be."

Emily had known from the very beginning never to make remarks like that.  Bond lets it go this one time, mostly because he's cursing himself for his stupidity last night on the firing range.  "Well, I'm sure it'll improve quickly."

"Hmm.  I want to have a look at your hand.  Your file says…well, flex your fingers for me, please."

Bond watches his fingertips wiggle.

"Can you form a fist?"

That's exactly what he's trying to do.  "No," Bond growls, although he manages to make his index finger curl forward a little farther. 

"Hmm," George says again.  Bond wishes he hadn't.  "Part of that is to do with muscle atrophy, no doubt."  Part.  Only part?  "You do have sensation in your hand, yes?  You can feel heat and cold and pain, and so on?"

"Yes."

"Good, that's good."  George stands up.  "I'm going to get a cold pack for your shoulder.  It's important to keep it iced after every session, as well as when you start doing your exercises at home."

"What sort of recovery time am I looking at?"  Maybe this sod can at least give him a straight answer.

"With a humerus fracture, traditionally, normal function is regained within eight to twelve weeks after the injury," George recites.  "Of course, your normal functions are quite a bit different from most people's.  Assuming no complications, you could be performing day-to-day tasks without difficulty within a couple of months.  I mean ordinary day-to-day tasks," he adds quickly.  "Not judo or something.  I'll be right back." 

He departs.  Bond tries not to seethe.  George hasn't told him anything that he hadn't learned for himself within five minutes of searching online.  George returns a couple of minutes later, returns with a blue cold pack in one hand and a frown on his face.  "Here we are."  He carefully puts a towel on Bond's shoulder, and then lays the cold pack on top of it.  "Hold that there.  Now watch.  I'm going to show you what you'll be doing at home twice a day.  It's called a pendulum exercise."

He bends over at the waist and lets his arm hang down by his side, and then begins swaying back and forth, using the momentum to move his arm gently in small clockwise and counter-clockwise circles.  "You've noticed that you have very little strength.  This is a start to regaining a bit of it, as well as flexibility.  Be very careful and don't overdo it.  A little soreness is fine, but if you feel any sort of sudden, sharp pain, stop at once.  When you're done, ice it."

Bond nods, resigning himself to looking like a complete fucking idiot in the privacy of his own home.  It wouldn't be the first time.

"When do I know more about this 'nerve damage' you mentioned?" he asks casually.

George shrugs, looking maddeningly casual himself.  But at least he doesn't sound evasive or cagey when he says, "Like I said, we'll get another EMG in a couple of weeks, when we see how your therapy is progressing.  I understand I'll be seeing you on Saturday morning?"

Before he goes back to Portsmouth.  "I suppose so."

"Fine."  George stands up and claps Bond's file shut.  "Have a good couple of days, Mr. Bond."

In a sudden fit of unaccustomed optimism, Bond decides that he will try.  He didn't hear anything about permanent damage, or not recovering fully.  There is no reason to assume the worst.  They say that attitude is a large part of recovery, that patients who keep their spirits up routinely do better than those who don't. 

He just jumped the gun at the firing range, so to speak.  Should have waited.  Silly of him, really.  He even tells Emily about it when she stops by to fix him supper that evening, permitting himself to be self-deprecating, but omitting the bit about his shaking hands.

"Men.  No wonder I gave you up," she says.  "Right.  Let's see you do that pendulum exercise.  I want to make sure you don't tear your arm off when you're by yourself."

He does.  It's more difficult than he'd expected—really, why is swinging your arm like a dead weight so complicated?—but she doesn't fuss over him.  When he's finished all the repetitions, she makes sure he can strap himself back into the sling easily, brings him a cold pack, and then goes to finish up the supper.  Salmon tonight. 

"I'll be stopping by a bit earlier tomorrow, if that's all right," she says.  "Four-ish?"

"Fine by me.  You've got plans?"

She shakes her head.  "Another patient.  A new one.  I'm not allowed to tell you any more about it."

Bond raises an eyebrow.  "I shan't push, then.  But I think you can assume you'll be up to your elbows in lucrative jobs from now on."

"You think so?"

"If you can get on with me?  Six'll never want you to work for anyone else."  He smirks.  "You and Sara'll be able to afford that baby in no time."  She glares. 

That night, before he goes to sleep, he re-reads some of the _Analects._   In the Chinese, to keep his hand in.  At university he'd studied Oriental languages, back when they were called that, and he still tries to keep up.  Best not to let that sort of muscle atrophy, either.  He won't let himself dwindle.   

Confucius teaches that a ruler must be virtuous above all else, and that you shouldn't do things to other people that you wouldn't like them to do to you.  Bond can't really relate.  He's not sure he could even have related in university, when he was softer and unformed.

The next day finds him at loose ends.  Having had a taste of action and purpose, however diluted, he feels more restless than ever.  He browses the news on his laptop over breakfast, does his pendulum exercises, ices his arm, and bathes.  He goes for a longer walk than usual.  He comes back and watches television and eats the leftover cold salmon for lunch.  

Emily stops by at four, as promised, cooks and straightens up and checks his arm.  She doesn't say so, but they both know perfectly well that her services will not be required for much longer.  They're not even required now, really.  MI6 is generously indulging him with her company—M is—but now that she's been noticed, she'll have better work to do. 

When she leaves at six, he contemplates the rest of his evening.  He's sick of sitting at home.  There's no reason he shouldn't hail a cab and go out.  He could get theatre tickets; everyone's raving about the revival of _The Homecoming_ at the Almeida.  Or he could simply have a drink.  Or leave Emily's food in the refrigerator and treat himself to a very good supper somewhere, perhaps accompanied by a pretty woman he picks up from the bar.  And after that, who knows?  Optimism has to be good for something.

Now that he thinks of it, he finds the idea irresistible.  He doesn't take as much care in getting ready as when he got called to Vauxhall, but he does manage to get on a pair of nice trousers and a decently crisp shirt.  Then the shoes and belt.  He is, he thinks resignedly, getting the hang of this.  He can do his tie by himself, too.  As he dresses, he runs through the options in his mind, all his favourite restaurants. 

He hadn't planned for this development when he got out of bed this morning, he hadn't planned his day at all; and yet, he finds himself unsurprised when someone knocks on the door just as he finishes his tie.

Yes.  She'll have learned her lesson from last time. 

He lets M in, and smiles at her when she—unsmiling—looks him up and down.  She leans in, though not indecently close, and gives a little sniff.  "Fresh cologne.  You're about to go out."

"Yes, let's not dally any longer.  What do you fancy?"

"Don't be ridiculous.  Go on, then.  I shan't keep you."

He looks at her, noting the way her gaze darts round his flat, seeing the tension at the corner of her mouth.  Her right hand is closed rather tightly around her handbag strap.  M didn't come here to make him another martini.

"I don't have any plans," he says.  "I just wanted some air.  Come in."  She looks towards his windows.  "Is your driver waiting?"

She swallows and closes her eyes briefly.  "No." 

His heart begins to pound.  "I see."

"No, you don't.  I need to talk to you, 007.  There are certain things I need to say to you."

There is a dark, almost a bleak note in her voice.  It does nothing to calm him, but transforms his sudden surge of lust into apprehension.  "Well…sit down, then."

She looks around the flat again, and then shakes her head decisively.  "No.  Let's go out."

It would have been less shocking if she'd kissed him.  M doesn't step out with her agents for a night on the town.  Protocol is the least of it. 

He nods, takes his jacket from the coat rack by the door, and slides his good arm into it, letting it drape over his left shoulder.  Then he locks the door behind them and they take the lift to the ground floor in silence.

When they're outside, he says flatly, "So my place has been bugged."

"It's a possibility.  I don't know."

" _You_ don't know?"

"Don't make me repeat myself.  Where are we going?"  She won't look at him.  "Somewhere in walking distance, I suggest."

There's a place on the corner, a cocktail bar attached to a restaurant.  He hasn't been in there.  It seems unobjectionable enough, though not exactly what he'd been thinking of when he'd got the idea to go out.  "This way," he says.

As they walk, she tugs her coat more closely about herself.  It's a brisk evening.  "How far?" she asks.

"The end of the street.  What's going on?"

"Nothing that can't wait for me to get a gin and tonic," she says in exasperation.  "I'm not expecting a hail of bullets, Bond.  Let's just go."  She shoves her hands in her pockets. 

A wind whips about them.  Bond draws his jacket closer over his shoulder with his free hand.  They don't walk so much as march towards the cocktail bar, silent, grimly determined.  A waitress seems slightly taken aback by their expressions when they arrive, but takes them down to the cellar, where the bar is.  Then they are seated at a high table with high stools.  Bond's has a wobbly third leg. 

It is, perhaps, not a promising start.  Cellars have no ironic charm for either of them, even when the walls have been fitted with shiny glass tiles.  M scowls at her cocktail menu and says, "Ten pounds for a G&T.  Bloody London."

"Scotch on the rocks," Bond tells the waitress, without even opening his own menu.

"Same," M sighs, tossing hers to the tabletop.  The waitress gives them a tight, frightened smile, takes the menus, and leaves.

"How the hell," Bond says, "can you not know if my flat's been bugged?  I know Six have been watching it."

"Not like that," she snaps.  "We monitor your movements, yes, but we haven't got a bloke sitting in a van across the street 24/7 or peeping through your windows.  We work with CCTV, and that's not useful for inside your building, in any case."

"But why would anybody want to bug my flat?" he asks, mystified.  He's been out of action for over a month now, with no sign of returning to it in the near future.  It's not as if anything particularly classified is happening inside his digs, either.  Then he realises, or thinks he does:  "Word's got out that you stopped by."

"No.  That is, I don't know.  That—maybe.  Or your flat might not be bugged at all.  I'll have it swept when you return, so you can oversee it personally."

He stares at her.  She doesn't look back.  He's never heard her speak like this before, so scattershot and uncertain.  "All right," he says slowly.

She gives him a quick glance, razor-sharp.  "Whatever conclusions you might be jumping to—don't."

"I'm not," he says honestly.  "I am completely in the dark, I assure you."

"That's a relief," she says, but it's got no teeth to it. 

The waitress returns with their drinks.  "Would you like anything to eat?  Should I have them prepare a table upstairs?"  Bond and M shake their heads.  "Right then.  I'll be back later to see if you need anything.  Or wave at the bar attendant."

"Thank you," M says, waving her off.  Then she glares around the cellar again.  "I wish you could still smoke in these places.  It makes them more bearable."

Bond raises his glass.  "This'll help, I hope.  Cheers."

"Chin chin," she agrees, and they sip.  As they do, her lips pucker with distaste (it's not very good), their eyes meet—and it's too late to stop thinking about the night their drinks were spiked.  They stare at each other with silent recognition as the thought occurs to them simultaneously.  He's glad it didn't happen with the martinis.

She sets her glass down on the table, still looking into Bond's eyes.  "We've been tracing Michelakis since he was released to Cyprus last month."

Bond blinks, a bit chagrined to realise he hasn't thought once about Michelakis since his injury.  "Anything interesting?"

"He's on a fool's errand, of course, trying to find the ones responsible for the death of his son.  It'll get him killed in the end.  But it's also getting him attention from certain parties.  I have spotted a few familiar faces in the crowd."

He processes the phrasing.  'I have.'  Not 'We have.'  "Okay," he says.  "Anyone I'd recognise too?"

She shakes her head.  "Not unless you're more familiar with my tenure in Hong Kong than I suspect."  Her hand tightens around her glass.  "'Though I never really know with you, do I?"

"You knew Lin Chun-Yao in Hong Kong," Bond says, thinking of the man who ran the pharmaceutical facility in Chongqing, the first corpse at the bottom of an ever-growing pile.  "Deported him."

"Before the handover, yes.  The Chinese wanted him, he'd been a thorn in my side long enough…the opportunity presented itself." 

"Right.  And these faces in the crowd.  They're Hong Kong faces?"

"Mm-hmm.  Deliberately so, I expect.  Someone wants me to notice."

"Do you know who 'someone' is?"

Her shoulders tense and relax so quickly that he'd never have noticed if he hadn't been paying such close attention.  It's almost a shudder.  "Yes," she says. "I believe so."

Bond knows she's about to show it to him now.  The bigger picture Tanner was asking about, the one she's been concealing this whole time.  He forces himself to stay relaxed—no easy task when his barstool keeps threatening to rock backwards—and not press immediately for details.   He waits.

"I avoid emotional entanglements with my agents for several good reasons," she says, and his entire body immediately flushes hot, then cold with dread.  "Protocol is not the only one.  MI6 hire brilliant people, inspired people—that brilliance and inspiration often comes with a price.  Insecurity.  Instability."

She glances up at him, checking to see how her obviously prepared speech is going over so far.  He looks back into her eyes, keeping his face still and expressionless.  He hadn't thought it would go like this.

"There was an agent who worked in my division for eleven years," she continues.  "Brilliant and unstable.  His name was Tiago Rodriguez.  Ring a bell?"  He shakes his head.  "I'm pleased to hear that, at least.  At any rate…he was one of my first hires.  Young and promising.  Quite young, really.  Didn't go to university—didn't need to.  He had a relationship with technology, with computers, that far exceeded his ability to form relationships with people."

"That's not so rare," Bond says, thinking of Christoph Junior, locked up in his bedroom with his toys.  Or the late, unlamented Q, for that matter.

"You don't understand.  He wasn't some socially inept technophile.  He could be incredibly charming.  Good-looking, too.  But he didn't seem to feel things deeply.  He could borrow money from anybody, make friends anywhere, talk anyone into bed, but as far as I was ever able to discover, he truly cared for almost no one."

" _Almost_ no one," Bond says.

She purses her lips, glances away, and nods.

He knows he's pushing his luck when he adds, "Could talk _anyone_ into bed."

She gives him a fierce look.  "It never went as far as that."

"But it went somewhere." 

"Look, 007.  I am going to tell you this story, but I am going to do it in my own way.  If you want to hear it, keep your mouth shut.  All right?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good."  She takes a long swallow of her Scotch and grimaces.  "Vile stuff.  At any rate, Rodriguez was more than a hacker.  He was physically suited for field work, and demonstrated a willingness to do whatever it took to get a job done, no matter the cost.  Taken all together—well, I watched him over the years, as he grew into his work.  I'd never seen anything like him.  No one could match him."

There remains a note of wonder in her voice that, under other circumstances, might—would—have roused Bond's jealousy.  But tonight she's telling the story of a fallen angel, and he can only listen with bated breath.

"He never made double-oh," she continues.  "Section heads don't have the authority to bestow that promotion.  And our—association—ended before I became M.  But he could have been.  If he'd been able to control himself, he would have been.  Oh, well."  She shrugs, as if to communicate an indifference to the past that she clearly doesn't feel. 

Then she's silent, until Bond prompts, "Why'd your association end?"

She blinks and shakes her head, coming back from whatever thought she'd been lost in.  "He knew how good he was.  And he was too clever by half.  He began operating outside his brief, hacking the Chinese, thinking he wouldn't be caught, or that I wouldn't care.  Wrong on both counts.  This was 1997.  The handover was coming up, and they were on to him, so—I gave him up."

She takes another drink.

"To the Chinese," Bond says.  She nods.  He thinks about what he knows of Chinese interrogations and feels his mind crawling away from her confession, crablike, in self-defence. 

"I got six imprisoned agents in return," she says.  "And a peaceful transition."

"And the top job, two years later."

Fury flares in her eyes.  "If you think that's why—you have no business judging me, Bond."

Bond takes a deep breath.  His ribs still protest, even a month later.  He is not entirely convinced by her outrage; more principled people have done worse things for ambition.  Not, as she says, that it's his place to judge.  "Why, then?"

"Did you not hear the part about how I got six agents in return for one?  To say nothing of the peaceful transition?  Did I not say that I avoid emotional entanglements?"

"But he didn't," Bond says, pushing towards the centre he can see clearly now.  The heart of the matter, so to speak.

"That didn't matter," she says coldly.  "I owed him no special protection because he loved me."

And just like that, it's there between them, out in the open.  Bond, not trusting himself to speak, only nods in acknowledgment. 

And agreement.

She sees it, but if it relieves or gratifies her, she gives no sign.  "Love shouldn't enter into it," she says, pressing her point home.  "A man like him…to another man, a male boss, he'd have given obedience, loyalty, respect.  But me?  He had to _love_ me.  That's how he rationalised it.  But if that's what I had to work with, that's what I used.  He was too valuable to waste."

"Until he wasn't."

"Careful, Bond," she says quietly.

"But it wasn't the end, was it?  What happened to him?"

"What often happens to people in Chinese prisons.  He vanished.  A…contact…in the government told me that he was taken to an interrogation facility somewhere in Guangdong province, but that was all."  She lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug.  "I judged it better not to know the details.  I later received a report that he had died, but it was unsubstantiated."

"And you didn't believe it."

She shakes her head.  "I didn't believe or disbelieve it.  What did it matter?  Or…no, I should say rather, what could I do about it?"

Bond looks at his own glass of subpar Scotch and finds that he has no desire to take a single sip.  "So you've put it together—Hong Kong faces, somebody reaching out to Q with magical toys—and you've come up with this man you haven't heard from in fifteen years.  That's all you're going on?"

M stares at him, her lips a thin, pale line. 

"It's the drug, isn't it," Bond says, so low he can barely hear himself.  That can't be his voice, can it?  Soft and hoarse?  "The aphrodisiac."  She nods.  "That's the sort of thing he'd do?"

"It's an awfully personal touch, isn't it?  Makes one wonder who would bother."  She finishes her Scotch in one long gulp.  Then she smacks her lips and shakes her head.  "A clear message, I would call it.  A salutation, even."

Yes.  A way of saying hello.  Because this man, this Rodriguez, had wanted her.  And fifteen years later, he'd… 

"Why drug me too?" Bond asks, knowing the answer, but hoping—for the first time hoping—that she will lie to him.  "You had your suspicions, you said."

She swallows, but keeps meeting his eyes.  He wonders who will look away first.  "I do, yes," she says.  "Though I can't be certain.  But—remembering him, knowing him as I did…I assume he believes you are his successor, as it were.  That you're like him."

Bond ought to quip about being brilliant, too good to waste, something to lighten the moment, anything.  He cannot.  He can't speak; he can only remember how he'd followed M home that night, barging into her house, never knowing what hand was pulling his strings. 

Rodriguez had meant to fuck her with another man's prick.  It had nearly worked.  If M hadn't been M…it would have.  Bond would have played the substitute in a heartbeat.

The look on her face.  The rage, the disappointment.  The betrayal.  _I will never trust you again._

She hadn't known then, Bond reminds himself, fighting down nausea.  She hadn't known who was behind it.  The disgust on her face had been for Bond's poor judgment alone.  He's not certain that makes it any better.

But she's telling him this for a reason.  It'll be a cold day in hell before M comes to him merely to unburden herself.  He knows what she wants from him.  He doesn't drop eye contact. 

"I've made mistakes," he says, "but I'm not like him."

"Perhaps you are, perhaps you're not."  Her gaze gets even sharper.  "I'd like to hear you explain how."

How?  What the hell's he supposed to say to that?  That he's sorry for what he did?  That he wouldn't blame her if she had to sacrifice him in the name of duty?  That he can do, will do, whatever she asks, because—because—

He keeps looking into her eyes as he says, "I serve Britain.  I don't serve you." 

"No?" she says, clearly having expected this.  "Tanner gave me an interesting report.  He says that you threatened young Michelakis Junior in Cyprus.  That he couldn't just order you to stop, he had to invoke my name to stay your hand."

"I…"

"And before that, there was something about bringing him to me 'giftwrapped'?"

"All right," Bond rasps.  "That's true.  But bloody hell, this is different, isn't it?  We're not just talking about any old mission, we're not—the bastards drugged me too, didn't they?  Was I really not supposed to care?"

"Whether you care or not is up to you, Bond.  You're not supposed to let it impair your judgment."  There's no heat in her voice.  Her eyes are cool, her gaze unwavering.  He's got no bloody notion what she's thinking.

He clears his throat, and says evenly, "M, I haven't failed.  I brought the Michelakises into custody.  Unharmed.  I got back the hard drive.  I did everything I was supposed to do.  I always get the job done, don't I?"

She says archly, "Usually with a higher body count than is warranted.  But in this instance, yes, you have acquitted yourself."

"Then I'm not sure what else you want.  I work for Six.  Not you."

She looks at him, gimlet eyed, silently assessing.  He looks back, willing her to see him fully, to hear everything he cannot quite bring himself to say.

Then she murmurs, "I'm glad to hear it," before reaching into her bag and pulling out her wallet.

"No," he says at once, lurching off his wobbly stool and reaching into his back pocket with his good hand.  He'll be dead and buried before he lets a woman pay for the drinks.

She watches this little performance in bemusement.  "I'll write it off as a work expense," she says dryly.

"That's some sort of embezzlement, I'm sure."  Bond drops his own wallet on the tabletop and fumbles with it one-handed, trying not to curse. 

"It isn't.  I'd call this business, wouldn't you?"

Bond glares at her.  "It's always business, isn't it?"  Wasn't that the moral of tonight's story?

"Hm."  She reaches into her bag again, but this time she pulls out her phone.  "I'm calling Tanner to set up a sweep for your flat.  They'll be there shortly.  Make sure you watch everything."

Well, that'll be just as entertaining as a night at the Almeida.  "Of course," he grunts, only half-listening to her make the call as he wrestles a twenty pound note free.  He finally tosses it on the table and closes his wallet again.  That should cover their two overpriced, low quality drinks.  He'll not be in a hurry to come back to this place.

M, finished with Tanner, drops her phone back into her bag.  She reaches out and picks up Bond's wallet, turning it over admiringly.  "Smythson."  Her lips quirk.  "Of Bond Street."

"Only the best."

"Naturally."  She hands the wallet back to him, and he tucks it back into his pocket.  "How's the physiotherapy going?"

"I've only just started.  Fine, I suppose." 

"Well, make sure you follow their instructions.  I need you back in the field as soon as possible."  The words send a reflexive zip of excitement through his blood, as she must have intended.  She slides the strap of her handbag over her shoulder, and gives a slight grunt as she dismounts from the high stool.  She's wearing the frumpy shoes again, and a baggy dress—no wonder, he supposes, all things considered.  She surely regrets her first appearance in his flat, when she'd smartened herself up and made him a drink:  a tactical error, for certain.

But that appearance was the only thing in recent memory that has made him happy at all.  Which is also a problem.   A rather serious one.

As they leave the restaurant, he sees her car already pulling up to the kerb.  "007," she says as they approach it, "everything I have just told you is in complete confidence."

"Understood."  Bond thinks of Tanner, Shannon Cartwright, and the other chosen few whom she trusts with her daily batch of secrets.  "Does anyone else know of your suspicions?  About Rodriguez?"

She growls, "Just don't talk to anybody about it, all right?  That's what 'complete confidence' means, if you'll recall."

So…that's a 'no,' then.  Interesting.  Bond decides that he will think about this later, and for now, opens the car door for her with his good hand. 

As they drive the short distance back to his flat, M says, "I'm interviewing for the new Q, by the way.  I believe I've settled on a candidate."

Bond's thoughts fly to the middle-aged man who'd seemed to be running the show during the melee, poor job though it was.  "Q2, I suppose."

"Mm.  You'll see.  In any case, it's not final yet.  But I believe I can push it through."  The car begins to slow as they approach his building.  He unbuckles his seatbelt.  "Bond." 

He turns to see her regarding him with a closed, hard look on her face.  Her voice is neutral enough, though, when she says, "You are different from Rodriguez.  Especially in one particular."

He feels a sudden lump in his throat.  "And what's that?"

She shakes her head.  "That's for my private reference.  But you might as well know.  You are different."

"I knew that already," he says, aware that her driver—though he has the highest security clearance—can hear every word.  "But I'm glad you do, too."

She rolls her eyes.  "Just watch the security team, will you, Bond?"

"Yes, ma'am.  Have a good…"  She's already looking at her phone again.  "Night," he sighs, getting out of the car.  She waves absently, not looking up as he shuts the door.

He watches the car as it rolls away from the kerb.  Then his stomach growls.  He never did get around to supper. 

Bond decides that if he hurries, he can eat whatever Emily prepared for him before the security team arrive.  After that, the rest of his night's a write-off.  It all seems rather pointless.  This Rodriguez arsehole—does M really think he'd have bothered to bug Bond's apartment since the injury? 

The notion makes his skin crawl.  Everything she told him about Rodriguez makes his skin crawl.  God, he hopes she's mistaken about this.  Even if it means wasted time, resources, and effort, he hopes she's barking up the wrong tree about this one.  May that brilliant, talented, unstable man be decomposing unmourned at the bottom of a Guangdong landfill.

Of course, M is rarely wrong.  That's why she's M. 

Bond keys in the access code to his building and steps inside, knowing that he isn't shivering from the cold.

 

* * *

 

Under Bond's watchful eye, the security team find nothing in his flat.  As they depart, they use words like 'relief' and 'glad,' but he can see that they feel as if they were called out for nothing.

By the time they leave, it's gone eleven.  He's waited for hours to do this.  Bond gets out his laptop, logs on to the secure MI6 remote network, and browses towards the section reserved for the fallen.  It's not all classified information—the obituaries are public, and dead agents' names are placed on a memorial wall in Vauxhall.  But he wants more than a name, a photo, and a platitude.

Station H, 1986-1997.  M's tenure.  The list of the dead and/or missing is fairly short—she didn't go through agents like tissues.  In fact, there are only six names on it.  Bond remembers that she got six other agents back in exchange for Rodriguez, so the original number would have been halved by the time she left the post.  That's an astonishingly conservative number over an eleven-year period, and if he didn't know her as well as he does, he'd have taken it to mean that she feared risk, that she was too cautious with her resources.  Times have changed.

There.  1997.  Tiago Rodriguez, Agent H3.  Bond clicks on the link, and is greeted with a photograph of a man with dark hair and eyes that burn with dangerous intelligence, even in the standard Service mug shot.  M's right: he was a good-looking bastard, though not exactly beautiful, not conventionally handsome.  Rather there is something about his face that suggests luxury, hedonism, charm in abundance.   And danger.  Certainly not the usual computer boffin.

 _He could talk anyone into bed,_ she'd said.  Bond can see how that'd be true.  Especially since his name suggests he probably spoke with an accent, the prick.  Always an advantage.

He reads what information is available: _Rodriguez, Tiago E., OBE.  1 Mar 1969- presumed dead 1997, date unknown.  Designation H3.  Served Station H May 1986-Jan 1997.  Missing in action on Jan 14, 1997.  Posthumously awarded OBE for bravery and services rendered.  Supervisor: Mansfield, Olivia P., CMG, Section Head H._

OBE.  Knowing it's petty, Bond smirks anyway.  He's got a CMG after his own name, thanks to that little business in 2010 when he'd stopped a sniper from seriously inconveniencing the Duke of York during a private evening with a lady friend.  M can say that he's never done anything more important than grabbing the hard drive, but Buck House might beg to differ, even if his noble deed could never see the light of day.

He places his chin in his hand.  Honours.  Olivia Penelope Mansfield, CMG.  She'd married Sir Reginald Cole and kept her own name.  That was in 1990.  Rodriguez would have worked for her for four years by then.  Bond smiles bitterly.  It probably hadn't gone over well. 

There isn't much more information easily available on Rodriguez.  He was born in Gibraltar and moved to London when he was seventeen, to live with an aunt and uncle after the death of his father.  Of his mother the records say nothing.  As M said, there's no record of him attending university, although he seems to have done well enough at Hounslow Manor School.  Bond knows that if he keeps looking, kicking over enough traces, he can probably find records of every restaurant the young sod dined at, every essay he ever wrote, every girl he ever fucked.  He can find out what the father died of.  Whatever is there to be known, MI6 knows it, so Bond could know too, if he's willing to put in the hours.

And why not?  If the man's really dead, it won't matter to him one way or the other.  But if he's alive—if he's acquainted himself as thoroughly with Bond as M seems to think—why shouldn't Bond have equal ammunition?     

He can feel it working at him again, the rage.  A canker spreading over his surfaces, rotting and peeling away what good is left.  Bond hates this man more than he's hated anyone in years.  That hatred exhausts him, saps him, and now, at half-past eleven on a Thursday, he sees how little rope he's got left.  

Bond growls and closes the laptop.  Perhaps another time, when he's got a clearer head, he can deal with this.  Tonight, he refuses to be the man that Rodriguez apparently believes he is. 

When he's ready to race again, and he's given his lead, then he will do what needs to be done.  For Queen and country, not for himself, and not for M.  He'd got that message loud and clear tonight.  If there is no room in his life for hatred, then there is still less for love.  Both can only stand in the way of duty.  Before he returns, he must set himself another task.

He will cut her out of his heart.  He owes her that much.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _What does it matter to you?_  
>  When you got a job to do,  
> You got to do it well--  
> You got to give the other fellow hell.
> 
> -Paul McCartney, "Live and Let Die"


	8. The Man With the Golden Gun

As Bond tries to forget M, she does her best to help.  For the next two and a half months (that's roughly seventy-five days, that's roughly eighteen hundred hours), he doesn't hear a word out of her.  There are no more evening knocks upon his door.  There aren't any calls or texts or emails.  She communicates solely through Tanner whenever necessary, and that's not as often as Bond would like.  But then, until he's back in top condition, Bond himself isn't particularly necessary.

It's a good thing, he tells himself.  Being cut off, that is.  When an alcoholic is trying to dry out, he avoids pubs.  Same principle.  Again, it's about maintaining a positive attitude: his enforced recovery is an excellent time for him to sort out his priorities and recoup the man he knows himself to be.  When the time is right and he is no longer foolish, he'll return to Vauxhall and learn about the new quartermaster, and the continuing fallout from Turkey, and all the other things he's not allowed to know about just yet.  Which is fine.

It's not as if he doesn't keep busy.  The three days he spends at Fort Monckton each week continue to be more rewarding than he'd expected.  He's getting to know the recruits well enough that he has to stop himself from thinking of them as 'his' recruits.  His role is chiefly that of storyteller—not his own stories, though.  That would make him feel worse than useless, a broken man reliving the glory days.  Rather, he builds for them scenarios, outrageous and dangerous, fashioned on his experiences but not wholly dependent on them.  And he makes the recruits work their way through.   Some of them find his puzzles and traps more frustrating than any physical obstacle course, and he's already writing them off as second-tier. 

He also continues with physiotherapy, following George's instructions religiously, no matter how bad a taste it leaves in his mouth.  His second EMG reveals little change in the nerves of his hand, but George tells him that it's fine, only to be expected, these things take time, and in the meantime, would he please try to get his elbow up to a thirty-five degree angle?

Bond feels like popping a cork when he can finally flex his elbow until his left hand is only a couple of inches from his shoulder without wanting to scream.  He decides not to pop it alone.  It's been too long.

The night after the celebrated appointment, Bond goes to a fashionable hotel as far removed from the cellar cocktail lounge as can be.  They know him there.  They do a first-rate martini.  Although, as he sips it tonight, he thinks perhaps it could use a touch more Lillet.

Two women sit at the end of the bar.  A quick, easy glance places them in their late twenties, perhaps early thirties, no more.  One of them is a lustrous blonde, the other a dark-skinned woman with stunning cheekbones.  He's turning into a dirty old man, he thinks in amusement, as he catches Cheekbones's eye. 

A few minutes later, she saunters over with her drink in her hand and says, "My friend and I share everything."

Ah.  Now that takes him back.  To Elsie, Birgit, and Munich, specifically.  "Including opinions?"

"Sure, including opinions."  She leans against the bar on her elbow.  Over her shoulder, at the end of the bar, the blonde's eyes gleam with laughter.

"And what is your opinion of strange men in hotel bars?"

"Depends how well they eye-bang.  You're rather good at it."

Bond takes the measure of the situation.  Quite apart from his own injured arm, he can't take them seriously.  There's stumbling into a lucky situation, and then there's the stuff of delusions.  He's pretty sure the blonde's laughter isn't good-natured.    

Well, that won't last long.  He says, looking deeply into Cheekbones's dark eyes, "You're as beautiful as you are cruel.  I like that." 

Her eyes widen.  He reaches out, never losing eye contact, and gently traces the fingertips of his right hand over her bare shoulder.   "I'm a one-woman man," he continues, "because I have learned to give every square inch of a lady my full time and consideration."  He slides his fingertips down to skim her décolletage.  "And devotion."  Her breath catches, and he feels goosebumps rise on her skin, but he keeps looking into her eyes.  Her pupils dilate.  "No complaints so far."

"There's a first time for everything," she says unsteadily.

"So cruel," he murmurs again, losing the eye contact to watch his finger gliding over her skin.  Oh yes, definitely late twenties.  "And me in mourning for the loss of my true love."

She takes a deep breath, pushing her breasts up and against the material of her dress.  Bond wonders if her blonde friend is still laughing.  "That sounds very sad."

"Tragic."

"Did she break your arm?"

He chuckles.  "No." 

"I'm sorry," she says.

He doesn't know what for.  He doesn't particularly care, either.  "I have no interest in your friend.  I have a devouring interest in you.  And you should know that having a broken arm does not render me incapable of licking fine champagne off your body.  Tell me…should I bother getting a room here?"

She closes her eyes briefly and says, "Are you safe?"

He nearly laughs.  Instead, he replies, "As houses."

The blonde glares at them as they leave the bar.

Cheekbones's real name is Sabrina.  And what a naughty girl she turns out to be.  Ingenious, too, when it comes to finding ways to work around his injured arm.  Of course, he sets the table particularly well with a bottle of Taittinger.

"Isn't that a bit expensive just for sex?" she asks archly as the cork pops through the air. 

But that doesn't prevent her from reclining against the pillows and squealing as he lets the cold liquid dribble all over her.  "Explain to me what's 'just' about sex," he says.  "You're finer than crystal."

Then he bends down to have a taste.  Delicious.  And one of champagne's many benefits is that it's unlikely to be older than his conquests.   

He treats Sabrina very well indeed.  When she's panting for breath, combing her hands through his hair, he says, "So, any complaints?"

"Bloody hell!" she gasps, and then pushes him on his back with a gleam of determination in her eyes.  "You'll get yours, dirty boy."

Getting sucked off through a condom isn't the best feeling in the world, but it's far from the worst, Bond reflects, as he tries to keep his thrusts gentle.  Certainly better than his own hand.  God, he's been celibate since  that flight attendant, what's-her-name, hasn't he?  Months ago.  Pathetic.

Then Sabrina stops.  He gives an involuntary moan of protest, but she only arches an unimpressed eyebrow.  The gesture is both so unexpected and so familiar that he actually gasps.  She squeezes him and says, "When this goes off, I don't want it to be in my mouth."

"Lady's choice," he manages.

"Right answer."  She straddles him, and sinks down in just the right place.  "Oh Christ, this is so good." 

"Is it?" he breathes.  "Tell me."

She does, with increasing volubility and volume.  She feels marvellous around him, and she's all smooth skin and bouncing tits.  He's missed this.  Nothing's quite like a fuck—the only thing better is gunfire and action, and God only knows when he'll get a taste of that again.  He presses his good thumb hard against her clit, and she flutters and comes around him again, while he gives himself permission to spill inside her. 

Then he's the one who leans back against the pillows, heaving for breath as he thinks, _I'd break both arms for you to be somebody else—_

That bloody useless thought is enough to make him reach out, tug her down, and kiss her furiously.  She lets him, panting and laughing against his mouth, before pulling away.  The smile she gives him is close to fond.  She moves up, letting him slip out of her.  He glances towards the bedside table, and she says, "Allow me," reaching for a tissue.

They lie together in companionable silence for a few minutes after that, getting their breath back.  He wonders if she'll want to stay the night.  He would never object—a gentleman doesn't kick a lady out unless she gives him damn good cause.  And the room service breakfast menu is rather good. 

Even as he's thinking this, she says, "Well, I'd better go."

"You don't have to."

"Oh thanks, but I've got work in the morning."  The time-honoured excuse.  He decides to let her save both their faces, and nods, wondering if she's got to get back to a boyfriend, or a husband, or children. 

Sabrina dresses quickly, but there's no sign of regret or hesitation.  She sits down on the edge of the bed to pull her shoes on, and then she says, "I'm not one to be nosey, so feel free to tell me to fuck off.  But did you mean that, about losing your true love?"  He raises his eyebrows, and she looks back frankly.  "You didn't sound quite as if you were joking, honestly."

"Well," he says, "true love might have been overstating it."

"All the same, though, something ended." 

He nods.  Then he realises that if she keeps pressing, he will tell her.  No particulars, no details of his career, or M's; but if Sabrina wants to ask, then…he wants to answer.  To make it real for someone else.  Just this one time.  Even though it will render him ridiculous, even though it will transform him from a dashing man of mystery into a pitiable figure who's trying to overcome his misfortunes.

"Did she break your heart?" Sabrina asks.

"Yes," he says, his honesty humming in his ears at a curious frequency.  

"Had to be some sort of love, then."

"I do believe you're right."

"I'm sorry."  She glances around at the wreckage of the bed, and says lightly, "Her loss, I'd say."

"Very kind of you."

"So did my bloke," she blurts.  "Broke my heart.  I went out tonight intending to get a bit of my own back, if you want the truth."

That explains the curiosity.  As well as the blonde friend, he supposes, the accomplice.  "And you picked a victim with a handicap?"

"The one with the handicap picked me."  She gives him a faint smile.  "You've got bloody amazing eyes.  The sort that can call a woman across the room.  But I suppose you know that?"  He shrugs modestly.  Her smile widens.  "Of course you do."

When she's ready to go, she leans in and kisses him, and says—impulsively—"You're worth ten of her, whoever she is.  Good luck."

As the door closes behind her, he can't quite repress a snort.  That's the sort of well-meaning nonsense people will say when they've had a good shag, are feeling generous, and know absolutely nothing about the person they're talking to.  It's decent of her, he supposes.  He's grateful, though, that she showed no inclination to learn more about him, or to see him again. 

Then he lumbers out of the bed with a faint groan.  They were both careful with his arm, but he can feel the strain.  The thought of what George would say makes him grin, but he's got more pressing matters to attend to, and he makes his way to the enormous bathtub to wash off the champagne.

 

* * *

 

Nearly four months after his accident, after ten weeks of intensive physiotherapy, he's no longer wearing the sling at all and has his full range of motion back.  Emily's been relieved of duty.  On her last day, he'd given her a sizable bonus from his own coffers.  She'd made earnest noises about calling to check on him every once in a while, but she's surely learned by now that Six frowns on that sort of thing.  He doesn't take it personally, and after she's been out of his life for a week or so, he rarely thinks about her.

Besides, he's taking care of himself.  After his physiotherapy sessions he stops by the facility's exercise room, where he has a damn good go on the elliptical (because George harps about jostling his shoulder unnecessarily with impact workouts).  Then it's the weight machines, which he hates, but he can't do squats or deadlifts yet, so he's got no choice.  It's nowhere near what he's used to, but it feels so good just to test his body again, to push its limits. 

Speeding right along, everyone tells him, looking good.  But when he asks about returning to duty, _real_ duty, nobody seems to…and shouldn't they have some idea, by now?

"Look, this left hand of mine," he says one day.  He can pull it into a fist now, for a few seconds at a time, but it's slow to respond to his commands, and his grip is weak.  He's finally got his arm to move about when he wants it to, he's regained a lot of strength; what's the problem with making his hand do the same?

"What about it?" George asks as he ices Bond's shoulder.

"It's still weak and useless, that's what," Bond growls.

"It's better, though, isn't it?  You can curl all your fingers now."

"Yeah.  I can."

"Yes.  You want the truth?  I’ve never seen anything like you," George admits.  "Even for someone in your line of work, your recovery is astonishing."  
  
"It's nothing remarkable by my lights."  Bond inhales.  "So—the trajectory is positive, then, it's on track?"  George frowns at him.  "The bloody nerve damage is what I'm talking about, George.  It's clearing up.  Right?"

George rubs his forehead.  "Hard to say.  We are, I mean, you're definitely improving in general."

"You said a while ago that you wanted me to get another EMG."

"So I do.  We'll wait another couple of weeks, though.  Right now, let's try lifting this weight, hmm?"

Lifting isn't even the hard part by this point, although it's not exactly a walk in the park.  It's keeping a firm grip on the weight.  His left fingers keep spasming, his hand keeps losing strength, and he drops the weight twice before George calls a halt. 

"I'll keep trying," he says.

"Good-oh, but remember," George says, "nerves aren't muscles.  You can't exactly whip them back into shape.  Don't punish yourself for—"

"I wasn't really talking to you," Bond says, storming out of the door and down the hallway to the exercise room. 

When he returns to Fort Monckton two days later, he spends another illicit fifteen minutes at the firing range.  He's embarrassed that it's taken him this long to return.  He cares about his recovery, yes—but there was also a certain loss of courage, of fortitude, that's hard to swallow. 

He aims his Walther one-handed.  His right shoulder hurts like buggery tonight, making his hand shake.  The shots go wide.  He inhales and grips the gun securely in two hands for the first time since he fell off the train, and it's like coming home.  

The two-handed grip steadies him.  His left hand isn't strong enough to hold a gun by itself, but it seems able to serve his right one.  It's not ideal, but he can adapt.  He knows he can, that's what being a double-oh is all about, isn't it?  Adapting—even transforming? 

(She'd worn reading spectacles the day she'd given him the brief for his first two kills.  She doesn't often wear spectacles, which he knows now, but hadn't known then; they'd done nothing to soften her gaze as she'd said, "007's been killed in action.  If you succeed in this, you'll replace him."

What she'd meant, of course, was _You'll become him._

Bond never even bothered to look up his predecessor's name.)

This time, he hits the target on the shoulder, then twice in the chest.  He exhales.  When he lowers the gun, both of his hands are shaking, and he feels sweat running down his back.  He reeks of anxiety. 

That wasn't so bad, was it?  A huge improvement over last time.  Well, a moderate improvement, anyway.  Of course, the recruits here would have to score better than this just to enter the Service, never mind attaining any level of real—

He bites his lip and turns to leave.  Then he nearly jumps when he sees someone watching him in the doorway.  Damn it, that's the problem with earmuffs.

"Good practice, 007?" Lt. Col. Markson asks him neutrally.

Bond wills his face not to flush.  "Improving."

"Must be a relief to be out of that sling."

Bond tucks his Walther into the holster inside his jacket.  "Quite.  What can I do for you, sir?"

"You have a call from central command.  I stopped by your room, but you weren't there.  Will you come with me, please?  I don't like to keep them waiting."

"Of course."  Against his will, his heart beats faster.  "What's it about?  Who's calling?"

"I'm not sure what's really going on—better let them tell you.  You can take the call in my office."

If it's that classified, Bond wonders why they didn't just call him on his mobile.  Then he realises, to his chagrin, that he left it in his bedroom.  "Thanks."

Markson leaves Bond alone in his office, decorously shutting the door behind himself.  Bond presses a button on the desk, next to a flashing yellow light, and a console screen raises itself.  He touches the screen to activate it, and M's face appears.

In spite of himself, his heart races, his skin prickles, and he can feel the flare of all his nerves, even the damaged ones in his hand.   He hasn't seen her since they parted over two months ago.  Hasn't heard a peep out of her.  And he knows it's for the best—he's been practising, hasn't he, getting used to—

"M," he says.

"007," is her crisp reply, "I'm calling to give you an update on Michelakis."

"All right."

"Specifically, I am calling to tell you that he is dead."

"I'm not surprised."  He's not.  Well, not by the news; he is very surprised, on the other hand, by the cold weight that settles in his chest.  "What happened?"

"We aren't totally sure.  But a neighbour found his body yesterday morning lying in the gutter just outside the building.  His throat had been slit."

"Do you know who did it?"

"Officially, no."  Her eyes narrow a little in clear warning.  Does that mean she still hasn't told anyone else about her suspicions of Rodriguez?  "The investigation continues, though I don't intend to expend too much effort on it."

Of course.  That'd look suspicious in and of itself, wouldn't it?  And what does a nobody like Michelakis rate, anyway?  None of this makes Bond feel better; in fact, he feels oddly as if he has failed a dead man. 

"Do you suppose he ever learned anything?" he asks. 

"About what?"  

Bond narrows his own eyes.  "About the death of his son."

She shrugs.  "It's a possibility.  Perhaps he was getting too close to something.  Or perhaps he was murdered for some entirely unconnected reason—we mustn't forget his line of work."

Bond remembers Michelakis in the interrogation room, every other priority whittled away by grief.  "He said he wanted to get out of the game."

She presses her lips together, then says, "There's no getting out of some games.  You know that."

"Did he at least know that Q was killed?"

M frowns, just in time for him to realise that these are not questions he should be asking.  Damn it.  "Why are you so concerned?"

"I'm not."  Bond manages to shrug.  "There's nothing to be concerned about, he's dead.  I just regret I couldn't follow through on something, that's all."

Is it his imagination, or does her face soften for a moment?  "Tanner mentioned that.  You said you'd take a picture of Q when you'd finished with him."

"Don't make it sound like an act of selfless generosity," Bond says dryly.  "I was already busy hating Q for other reasons." 

"Bond, I assure you, there's no way I can make taking a photo of a corpse an act of 'selfless generosity.'  At any rate, I just wanted to tell you."

Tell him personally.  Bond resists the urge to look at his watch, but he knows it's after eleven.  "Thank you, ma'am," he says.  She does not react to the formality in any way he can detect, but when she does not immediately reply, he tilts his head and adds, "Is there anything else you want to tell me?"

She hesitates.  It reminds him of the night they learned of Q's treachery, when they stood together at her window.  Would anything have changed if she'd confessed everything right then? 

Tonight, she says quietly, "No.  There isn't.  How is your recovery progressing?"

Even as he says, "It seems to be on track," he realises that M knows how his recovery is progressing better than he does himself.  There is no reason for her to ask him about this, except that she simply wants to talk to him.

He's hopeless.  He's completely fucking hopeless.  The last two months might as well have never happened; they were just blanks, wasted time he'll never get back.  Why the hell had he believed he could ever—

"I've got to get another EMG.  In a couple of weeks, they told me," he says gruffly, stuffing his right hand into his trouser pocket.  "Hopefully it'll tell us more about the nerves in my hand." 

"Mm.  You still haven't been cleared for target practice or combat, of course."

"Who told you?"  And how?  Tonight was only his second attempt on the firing range.

"Told me what?"  Ah, whoops.  She glares at him.  "I see."

He shrugs again.  Caught.  "Just keeping an eye on my improvement."

"And are you improving?"

"Yes," he says, looking her in the eye and trying not to think about his shaking hands. 

She looks right back.  "Have you been scoring yourself?"

"Not really.  No."

"Start." 

He nods.  There passes another moment of silence, and good God, he's missed her.  The world is wide and lonely, now more than ever, and that never frightened him while he could work in the shadows.  But now he feels as if he has been pushed, naked and raw, into searing sunlight, and he's looking around and realising that nobody stands at his side, or even off in the distance. 

Then she says abruptly, "Well, good night, then."

"Wait," he blurts.  _Not yet._   She raises her eyebrows.  "I haven't heard anything about a new quartermaster.  I've been wondering."

Her lips purse.  "Ah.  Have you?"

"You did say you had a candidate in mind."

"I did."  She sighs.  "Let me just say that it hasn't been approved.  I am encountering some resistance to my choice."

Bond growls, "Bloody bureaucrats always think they know better.  It's all political."

"Oh, yes.  It certainly is."  She narrows her eyes and gives him a sharp, humourless little smile.  "But I intend to have my way with this."

He smirks before he can stop himself, even waggles his eyebrows.  She rolls her eyes, and the smile vanishes into a moue of disgust.  "Listen, if you're going to set me up like that," he says. 

"Oh, I suppose I've got no one to blame but myself?"

"I'm only human."

"I occasionally have doubts about that.  Good night, 007."  The screen flickers and goes dark, leaving him alone in Markson's office once again.

He sighs, lowers the screen back into the console, and exits the office to find Markson waiting out in the corridor.  "Thank you, sir," he says, putting an appropriately dispassionate expression on his face.

"Of course.  I trust all is well?"

"As well as it ever is."  Bond nods at him.  "Good night, Colonel."

His spirits ought to be marginally lifted.  He'd at least managed to hit the target on the range, and to top it off, M had even allowed him to flirt a bit.  And this after contacting him for the first time in over two months, for something she could have easily delegated to an underling—if she'd had to tell Bond about it at all, which she hadn't. 

And why?  That's the rub.  Bond knows M, understands her, and yet he doesn't.  Is it that she thinks enough time has passed since their conversation in the bar?  It's safe to talk again?  Or is she simply tired of being alone with her secrets, and succumbed to a moment of weakness?

Either way, it's a sign that he's back in favour.  It can only be good news, for his career if nothing else.  But as he returns to his room, Bond finds that he's got no spring in his step, and as he lies down to sleep, the cold weight reappears in his chest.

He wakes early from a dream.  A nightmare, he supposes.   He'd been shaving in the bathroom of the hotel where he'd met Sabrina, but he kept missing lots of spots.  He couldn't concentrate.  Michelakis had stood behind him the whole time, staring at him in the mirror.  That terrible grief had burned in his eyes, but he'd said nothing.

And yet when Bond awakens, it's to the memory of Michelakis's voice, rough with pain: _I've lost everything that matters to me.  I hope you do too._

In the pre-dawn stillness it has the ring of prophecy, not curse.  Bond shivers and gets out of bed, dressing himself without bothering to bathe.  He gets halfway through his morning exercises before giving up and reaching for his coat.

There's a barren stretch of sand between Fort Monckton's walls and the Channel.  He walks it, feeling faintly ridiculous, a brooding prat straight out of a Gothic novel, but it's only because no pubs are open.  If he can't drown Michelakis at the bottom of a pint, maybe he can cast him into the sea.

"You daft old bugger," he mutters, the words turning into clouds in the air.  "You should have known better."

But that's too heartless even for him.  Known better than what?  To love his own son?  To seek to avenge him? 

No.  To assume anyone would care; to think the world would yield an inch, would give a damn.  Men like Michelakis could look for justice all they liked.  They'd come face to face with death instead.  That's all there ever is in store, that's the big reward, the bed of nails.  And if a man can't live with that, can't accept it—

Bond fumbles in his pocket for his mobile.  He texts: _I want the EMG as soon as I return._ Then he sends it to her straightaway.

Two minutes later, his display lights up.  Her reply reads: _Yes._

It's half-past six. 

Bond looks down at the phone, thinks of various replies he could send ( _Thank you_ or _How are you_ or _Why did you call_ or _Have you been waiting for me_ ); but in the end he just puts it back into his pocket.  He walks forward until the wet sand sucks and grabs at the soles of his shoes and the grey water licks at the fine leather toes like a dog. 

It is very quiet and peaceful here.  He's only been strolling along.  Why is his heart pounding so hard?  Why does he feel sweat breaking out on his back, his palms? 

Why does he feel as if he is running full-tilt towards something he does not want to reach, and cannot even see?

 

* * *

 


	9. Another Way to Die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since the films never assign a specific age to M, I've made her 72 (and retconned "Untouchable" appropriately), for no real reason except that's about the age Judi Dench is in Casino Royale, and that will forever be how I imagine M. It doesn't affect the plot, but I thought I'd mention it in case anybody noticed/cared!

He makes it back to London two days later, and is taken straight to the secure medical facility that performed his surgery.  To his surprise, George awaits him there, wearing a suit instead of the usual sweats.  "Morning, Mr. Bond," he says. 

"George," Bond replies, following him down the corridor.  The whole facility is done up in the standard, sterile medical white and steel, but he never forgets they're underground.  A cellar by any other name would smell as dank.  Even over the antiseptic.

Every sound seems amplified.  The soles of his shoes give rubbery squeaks against the tile floors.  He fancies he can even hear George breathing, calmly, regularly.  Although he can hear sounds, movements and voices, muffled behind the occasional door, they have the corridor to themselves.  Bond discovers he wants faces, other people to look at, something more than the back of George's head and an endless stretch of white wall enlivened only with the occasional defibrillator or fire extinguisher.

The past few days have given him just enough time to start having doubts.  George had originally wanted to wait a couple of weeks more.  Perhaps there's no reason to be so impatient.  These people have handled dozens of cases like his; they must have the timing down pat.    

But his sudden reluctance comes from cowardice, not prudence—he's afraid of what he'll see.  That means he has to look, no matter what, and he has to do it now.  If the timing's so important, then he can get another bloody EMG in fourteen days as planned.

Today's EMG takes an hour, though it feels like far longer.  A benefit of being a national resource, Bond supposes, is that his surgeon will receive the results within minutes after the tests conclude.  Thank God for sidestepping the NHS.  He submits to the mild electric shocks, which unnerve him more than any actual torture he's ever endured.  Then he watches George stick the electrodes into his hand in various places.  He relaxes and clenches (tries to clench) his fist on command and thinks about his nerves, willing them to mend on the spot.

Then he sits in a waiting room while his results are sent away and calculated, looking at the opposite wall with a magazine sitting in his lap.  He can hear only the remembered static and crackle of the machine, can see only the technician's pleasantly bland face.   At one point he goes to the coffee machine that sits in the corner, pours himself a cup, and lets it go cold by his elbow.

After three hours, George appears and gestures for Bond to follow him again, this time to a small office.  Bond realises that it must be George's own office; he wonders who his stoic physiotherapist really is, and why everything in Six has to be such a three-ring circus of secrets.  Does M have some sort of pathological addiction to mystery?

George moves to a panel on the wall, pushes a button, and the panel raises up to reveal a flatscreen monitor beneath.  "I've got your doctor on the other end, Mr. Bond," he says, and presses another button.  The screen turns on, and Bond sees the stern face of his surgeon, Mrs. Timms. 

"Good afternoon, Mr. Bond," she says.  "How are you today?"

"I'm not sure how I am.  Why don't you tell me?"

She exchanges a knowing look with George.  Then she holds up a printout.  "These are the results of your EMG.  I'm going to explain some terms to you, all right?"  He nods.  "Okay.  There are three kinds of nerve injuries, all right, ranging in severity.  The least severe kind is neurapraxia, which generally results in complete recovery.  That's—" She hesitates, and finishes with, "Not what you've got."

Bond realises he is holding his breath.  He exhales slowly.  "What have I got?"

"The next one up, if you will.  Axonotmesis.  It means that your axons, your nerve fibres, have been disrupted, but have not lost continuity or connective tissue.  So that's good.  But axonotmesis can cause paralysis, weakness, all the symptoms you have noticed.  The axons must regenerate.  It doesn't mean that you'll never recover fully—but it can take a long time."

"A long time?  How long?  Weeks, months?"

"It can be weeks, on occasion.  Or months, more frequently."  She hesitates again.  "Or years."

Bond purses his lips and swallows.  "So when do I know?"

She says, "Your bones are healing perfectly.  Your rate of recovery, as far as that goes, is astonishing.  George tells me that you're powering through physiotherapy and getting your strength and flexibility back, so that's wonderful.  And after a fall like that, you have much to be grateful for.  It could have been a lot worse."

Bond stares at her.  She looks back, steady-on, but her smile is too stiff.

"My hand," he says, "look at this."  He casts his glance about the office and sees, of all the absurd things, a snowglobe paperweight on George's desk.  He storms over, ignoring Mrs. Timms's "Mr. Bond," and picks it up with his left hand.  Then he turns around to face the screen and raises the snowglobe, watching his shaking hand and spasming fingers, holding it as tightly as he can and knowing that he's only got moments at best until—

George dives forward and catches his paperweight before it hits the ground. 

"Mr. Bond," Timms tries again.

"This is ridiculous," Bond shouts.  "A thousand men can break their arms and be good as new—what the hell happened to me?"

"You fell off a train," she says sharply, "and suffered, let me remind you, miraculously minimal damage."

"Minimal?  I can't hold on to something for more than fifteen seconds at a time, you think that's minimal?"

"I can't tell you why some people get hurt in different ways from other people.  And I shouldn't _have_ to tell you that you could have easily been paralysed, or comatose, or killed.  I'm sorry.  I know—"

"You don't know anyth—"

"—that this isn't the news you wanted to hear today."

"Should I have waited?  If…" He swallows.  "I wasn't supposed to have an EMG for another two weeks.  Perhaps we should have waited after all."  He runs his right hand through his hair and feels the shift of shrapnel in his shoulder.  "What's the likelihood of substantial change between now and then?"

"I don't know."  She folds her hands on her desk and says, "Mr. Bond, I'm not going to lead you on.  I've looked at your previous two EMGs, of course, and there is not as much improvement as I would wish to see between then and now.  It is possible that there are other therapies we can explore, but it is only fair to tell you where you stand."

"Years."  He looks down at his hand.  "Years before it's back to normal?"

"It will improve by degrees over time," she reminds him.  "You won't suffer through having a weak hand for two or three years, and then wake up one day and it's at full strength again."

"Well, I need it at full strength."  And he needs it now.  Two or three more years?  He'll never get his old job back.  As a double-oh he's practically at the expiry date already.  By the time he's recovered, he'll be past it.   

He's already having visions of sitting crouched over a radio receptor and listening to some sod's bugged hotel room.  Or following people down streets, giving locations and times so that someone else can swoop in and take care of business.  Or maybe getting a 'promotion' and working a desk, running analysis of the radio transcripts and the travel patterns—drinking too much coffee, growing a gut, and shuffling towards a different, more complete kind of death.

"I'm sorry," she says again.  "I don't know what else I can tell you.  I can't wave a magic wand and heal your hand.  The most we can do is wait, monitor, perhaps try those alternative therapies.  I will consult with George and see what we think is best.  All right?"

"All right," he says dully, because she is correct: there is nothing else she can do.  MI6 only hire the best, Tanner said.  This thought spurs him to add, "I assume you have already sent the results on to my employer."  She nods silently.  "Of course."  He takes a deep breath and lets it go.  "Is there anything more to say here?"

Timms says, "No, Mr. Bond.  That is all for today.  We'll be in touch."

"Thank you for your honesty, Mrs. Timms.  And your assistance, George."  He gives George a wintry smile.  "Or whatever your name is."  Their eyes widen simultaneously.  He gives them a curt nod and sees himself out; as he shuts the door, he hears their voices already murmuring in hushed conversation, as if they think he will stop and listen from the corridor.

No need.  He's heard everything he wants to hear.  He looks at his watch: four in the afternoon.  Not nearly too early to begin drinking.

He doesn't want to do it at home.  He emerges from the facility and begins walking, with no clear destination in mind, but passing a few pubs as he goes.  Then, for no real reason, after he's been walking for nearly half an hour, he ducks into one and orders a Scotch. 

The place is cramped, dark, and unwelcoming: he can't imagine it being packed even at happy hour.  Exactly what he wants.  Then, just as he sits down in a booth, his phone buzzes in his pocket. He looks at the display.  It's Tanner.  No…on the whole, he thinks not.  Bond lets it ring. 

A few moments after it's stopped ringing, a text pops up, also from Tanner: _Return call asap._ Bond finishes his Scotch in one long gulp and orders another.  Then a third.

After that, feeling pleasantly fuzzy, he goes walkabout again.  He keeps thinking that his phone will ring again, but it doesn't.  At half past six, he stops for fish and chips at a street cart and eats them off newsprint.  Then it's a stop at another pub for a pint, mostly so they'll let him use the loo. 

By then, he knows quite well that he's being followed.  Does she think he's going to off himself or something?  He'll be torn a new one for ignoring Tanner and indulging himself this way, that's for certain, but he's fairly sure he won't be able to give a damn until tomorrow. 

Eventually, when it's half-past seven, he gets a bottle of water and drinks it down while he takes a cab back to his flat.  When he lets himself in, he half expects to be greeted with a platoon of scowling, suited agents who are there to paddle his bottom on M's orders, but the place is empty. 

What little buzz he had is nearly gone.  That was the idea, but he can't remember now why it was appealing, and so he makes himself a martini.  He's running low on vodka.  Might be able to finish off the bottle tonight. 

He's made it through one martini, and is considering a second, when he hears the rattle of the key.  The door bangs open with such force that he's reflexively on his feet, ready to fight, before he sees that M is alone.  

Before he can speak, her eyes drop to the empty martini glass on his coffee table.  "Oh, very nice," she says, coming in without an invitation and slamming the door behind her.  "Very nice indeed."

"Do you even know how to call ahead?" he asks.

"What good would that do?  You don't answer your phone.  You don't return Tanner's calls—are you a child?"

"I'm not a child, and I'm not even drunk," Bond growls, "and you know why I didn't call Tanner back, you know perfectly well.  Can't I have one night?  Or am I supposed to believe you were going to assign me a top-secret mission and I've ruined your plans?"

She flings her handbag onto the sofa.  "You are supposed to believe that you're an agent of MI6, and that when we call you, we expect you to answer.  Must we have this conversation yet again?"

"Is this the royal we?"  Bond shakes his head and picks up his glass.  Her eyes flash.  "You had me followed.  You knew where I was."

"Waste of resources.  Waste of manpower.  I'm embarrassed.  I should just have you chipped again," she spits. 

He's thrown by her anger.  It seems out of all proportion.  He's behaved worse before, and for less cause than this.  He says, "I expect it costs a lot, chipping.  I'd call that a waste of resources too, for someone who's not even returning to action."

Her breath catches.

"Me and Ronson," Bond continues.  "You lost two double-ohs that day.  I imagine that stings a bit."  He grits his teeth and heads to the sideboard.  "I'll make you one, shall I?"

After a moment of silence, she says stiffly, "Not a martini.  Just the Gordon's will do.  And pray don't feel obliged to keep me company." 

He pours her a measure of gin, neat, and passes her the glass.  Their eyes meet, and he asks, "Did you really think I'd do something desperate?"

"If I did, you'd have been strapped down for your own safety for hours by now, not making me a drink."  She knocks half of it back in one swallow, and then coughs, wincing.  "Christ.  Gah."  She waves him off when he steps forward.  "I'm not used to it, that's all."

"Have a seat."

"No."

"Are you leaving?"

"No."

They face each other in silence, although he can hear his own heartbeat loud and clear.  Her eyes are cold and hard with their customary challenge, but there is something unusual in the set of her mouth tonight: it is painful, it humanises her, turning her from Pallas Athene into a creature of flesh and blood.  There's something she really doesn't want to say.

But he knows.

"Have I already been decommissioned?" he asks.  "Have you taken my number?"

She purses her lips.  "We have no choice."

"No choice.  _You_ have no choice?"

"You've already been out of action for nearly four months.  And now, with this report—" She shakes her head.  "We need eight double-ohs in constant service.  003 was replaced three months ago.  You know how it works.  Don't take it personally."

"So I'm being sacked."

She gives him a cool look, and takes another deliberate drink before she says, "You are being—"

"Don't say 'promoted.'  Don't."

"—transferred," she finishes.  "It hasn't yet been determined where."

Transferred?  His blood chills.  Does she just mean to another division within MI6, or farmed out on permanent assignment elsewhere?  Is he going to be told that he'll serve as an 'important liaison' in Paris or Moscow or Tokyo?  Or, God help him, Washington?  He'd rather bug hotel rooms.

"I'm good in the field," he says through his teeth.  "It's where I belong, it's where I'm meant to stay."

"You're forty-five.  If you could remain this age indefinitely, you might have an argument."  She finishes her drink, and looks down into the empty glass as she says bitterly, "We're none of us as young as we were.  That's just how it goes."

He knows this is stupid.  He knows that M doesn't specialise in sympathy or compassion.  But he can't stop himself from saying, pleading really, "M, I'm not made for a desk job.  I know you can think of something."

"Me?" Her voice is rough with something like a laugh.  "I can think of something?"

"If not you, then who?"

"I don't know."  She doesn't look at him, but paces past him to look out the windows again.  At his 'not bad' view.  Her shoulders are drawn up unusually high as she says, "I've told you before that self-pity doesn't suit you."

"I'm not pitying myself.  Damn it, I know my strengths, I know when I'm useful and what I'm good at.  You can't just leave me to rot somewhere—haven't I earned more than—"

 _"_ _Earned?"_  

She rounds on him, and he sees her eyes blazing with rage right before she hurls the empty glass at the nearest wall with so much force that it shatters.  His jaw drops, and when she begins to move in his direction, gliding forward like a provoked cobra, he actually takes a step backwards.

"Can you hear yourself?" she demands, stopping less than two feet away from him.  "You've survived as a double-oh for six years.  You've as good as broken the bloody record.  And you stand there and have the nerve to complain?  To feel sorry for yourself?  You'll continue serving your country in whatever capacity you're declared fit for, because that's what you signed on to do!" 

"M—"

"Did you really think I wouldn't break you?" she shouts.  "That you were immune or indispensable?"

"What?!"

She doesn't hear him.  Her eyes are wild, her face flushed, in a way he had not known was possible.  "It's not my job to protect you!  To look out for you, to make sure things go well for you!"

"I never said it was—"

"Personal considerations are irrelevant—"

"I know they—"

"It is my job to protect Britain, that is _my job,_ and nobody—"

"He's not here!" Bond roars.

She stops dead, her eyes widening as if he's just woken her up.  "What?"  She even shakes her head a little.  "What did you say?"

"He's not here.  This man, your Tiago Rodriguez," Bond snarls.  "Stop having this conversation with him.  Have it with me." 

She stares at him, her eyes impossibly blue, her cheeks red.  "You insolent bastard," she says shakily.

"'Break me.'  As if you could."  Bond heads back over to the sideboard, thinking that gin sounds like a grand idea.  "Nearest you'll come is that glass." 

She says nothing, and he doesn't look up from pouring his drink.  He wonders if she'll just leave.  But he's pretty sure he's telling the truth.  She can use him, hurt him, transform him; she can break his heart—has done—but she cannot break him.  He long ago arrogated that right to himself exclusively.

He follows her lead and takes a long-arsed drink, managing to finish off a good three-quarters of the glass in one gulp.  Then he winces and shakes his head.  If he wants to make a habit of straight gin, he'll have to get in a better brand.

"You think this is about Rodriguez?" she asks from behind him, her voice low with danger, and Bond feels himself gearing up for another round.  He supposes it's preferable to watching her storm back out of his flat.  "Is that what you think?"

He turns to see her watching him with a hawk's unerring gaze.  "Why not?  It's what you told me yourself.  And no one else, apparently."

She swallows.  "I have no proof.  Not a shred of evidence that isn't circumstantial."

"Never stopped you before."  Then he twigs to it, and feels like the world's greatest fool for not seeing it until now.  "Although I imagine you're not in a great hurry to tell anyone about what really tipped you off."

No, she wouldn't be.  Bond can't quite imagine M telling tales about their night together, explaining to all the relevant parties that she thinks she knows who the culprit is, all because her drink was spiked and she sort of slept with an agent. 

He finishes the gin and contemplates drinking some more, contemplates drinking a whole swimming pool full of it.  Must be polite, though.  "Have another?"

"Yes," she says, surprising him.  He turns and reaches back towards the bottle.  She says, "I've been fired, too."

He watches his own hand pause on the way to the gin. He wonders if he's drunker than he thought. 

"It was Q, you see," she says, a faint hitch in her voice.  "It didn't speak so well of my discernment."

He pours two glasses of gin.  When he turns around, he's got her glass in his right hand, and he clasps his own in his left, pressing it close to his chest to steady it.  He's all right so long as he doesn't have to hold something out on its own.

She's sitting on his sofa, a small woman clad in black, her hands braced on her knees.  She looks up at him with all the raw pain of the bereaved, and he nearly drops both glasses anyway.

"We got the hard drive back," he says.

The anguish in her eyes only deepens.  He wants to cringe.  "But he stole it in the first place," she points out.  "Right from under our noses.  And then there was the PR debacle in Istanbul—you were in no position to know about that at the time, but just to remind you, you were part of a rampage through a national landmark." 

"That'd hardly be the first time," he protests. 

"Well, apparently it was the charm," she snaps.  "That, and Q, and the fact that I'm seventy-two bloody years old, which is hardly lost on me.  They've been waiting for an excuse.  I see that now.  I must concede it's a good one."  She holds out her hand.  It shakes almost imperceptibly.  "Just give me that, will you?"

He gives it to her, pretends not to notice that some of the gin sloshes out, and then sinks down on the other end of the sofa.  "When did you find out?"

"The afternoon before I called you—"

"—about Michelakis," he finishes.  Of course it was.  "Christ.  The bastards."

"Cheers," she mutters, and they drink together. 

When she's halfway through, she glances towards the glass shards gleaming on the floor.  "I'm sorry about that."

He grunts.  "You're allowed.  Break that one too, if you like." 

She snorts, and then leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees and looking down at the Oriental rug.  Apropos of nothing, Bond remembers the beautiful wall-hanging in Michelakis's flat.  He'd meant to get one for himself, hadn't he? 

"They summoned me to Whitehall," she says.  "You'd think I'd have seen it coming, but no."  She takes another drink.  "I got the news from a tosser named Mallory.  New chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee.  He was trying for vintage Churchill and succeeded at nouveau Urquhart."

Mallory.  Bond runs the name through his mind.  Not ringing a bell.  He decides to hate him anyway.

"At any rate," she adds, "it's done, and I'm out."

"When?"

"Two months.  He's been brought in to oversee the transition period to my voluntary retirement."  She sneers.  "Not to worry, though.  They will be certain to ask for my input on my successor."

This all feels like a bad dream.  M?  Thrown out on her ear?  _M?_   "This is ridiculous," he says.

"Thank you for that nuanced assessment."

He doesn't rise to it.  If he's allowed to have a sulk, so is she.  "Should I ask about what comes next?"

"What always comes next.  I'll be kicked upstairs."  For an instant, she looks as if she's two seconds away from lobbing her second glass, but then she clearly decides not to waste the gin and takes another drink.  "They'll turn it into a gesture.  I've been promised a GCMG.  And probably I'll get a ride on the Brussels gravy train, or perhaps a sweet little quango of some sort."  Her mouth tightens.  "They have only the highest gratitude for my years of service, you see."

He doesn't know what to say.  If somebody had asked him only an hour ago if anything could happen to make him feel more helpless, he'd have said no, and here it is.  Even two steady hands couldn't do a thing about this, and he's barely got one.

Bond's always been told one thing: when you work for the Service, you can't get your heart involved.  It doesn't only apply to people, to things like the strange relationship between him and M.  Britain is the cruellest mistress of them all.  The history books are full of examples.

"Well," he finally says, "if you get to live it up in Brussels, I want to come too.  There's got to be some sort of cushy SIS assignment for retired double-ohs, hasn't there?"  Then he knocks back the rest of the drink so she won't see that he's serious.

When he lowers the glass, he realises that it might not have worked, because she is regarding him with a pinched, pale face.  He feels unutterably foolish.  "M," he begins.

"You aren't retired yet," she says, so softly he almost doesn't hear her.  But the steely note in her voice is enough to make him put down the glass. 

"What are you thinking?" he asks.

"I need to know," she says.  "If this is really Rodriguez's work—then he's already won, I suppose."  She purses her lips, and for a moment, the rage flashes again in her eyes.  Then she controls it and says,  "But I need to know.  If he's at all the man I remember, he remains a serious threat to the national security."

"And you want me to find out."  She nods.  "Let me ask you something."

"Are you sure you ought to?" she replies archly.

"How ashamed are you?"

She rears back, and he thinks of the cobra again, flaring its hood.  "I _beg_ your pardon?"

He will not relent.  Not with these stakes.  "You haven't told anybody about this man, except for me.  Tell me it's not just because of the aphrodisiac—"

"Oh, really, Bond!"

"I was the one who fucked that up," he says through gritted teeth.  "Not you."

"I know that perfectly well," she snaps.  "It's not about shame.  It's—" She thins her lips and glances away towards the kitchen.  He looks at her profile, which he has always found lovely in its resoluteness.

"You've asked me to trust you," she finally says.  "Begged me, even.  Here it is."  She looks at him, a glint in her eyes.  "I need you."  He swallows.  She adds, "Do you need—" Then her eyes widen, she clears her throat, and she says, "Do you trust me?  Or do you only obey?"

For a moment, he doesn't understand the question, but then he remembers their exchange in the lift after discovering Q's treason.  It seems so long ago.  And he is both chagrined and gratified that the conversation's stuck with her like this.

He leans forward, looking her in the eye, and says, "I'll help you if you help me."

She growls, "Bond, there's no way you can return to double-oh status.  I can't work miracles."

"I don't need a miracle.  But I do need at least one decent arm."

She frowns at him.  He looks steadily back.  "And what," she says, "do you expect me to do about that, exactly?"

 

* * *

 

Thanks to Emily's insistence, he now keeps a first aid kit beneath the bathroom sink.  M places it on the coffee table, along with a basin of warm water and some clean towels, and rubs her penknife down with an alcohol wipe.  Then she does the same to the patch of Bond's skin that bears the scars of shrapnel.

"Good thing you got me ginned up for this," she says as she places the tip of the knife to his skin, tilting her head and eyeing her canvas critically.

"Two drinks and you're ginned up?  Perhaps we should reconsider."

"Don't start with me, Bond."  Her voice is unusually gentle when she adds, "Shh, be still now."  She rests one hand, firm and cool, against his chest, while the other presses the knife down and makes a small, shallow incision. 

He hisses, the sting sobering him up quick smart.  She doesn't look up from her work, but she does ask, "All right?"

"Mm.  Keep going."

Thanks to the booze, the work is a trifle bloodier than it would normally be.  But her knife is quick and neat, and, guided by the occasional instruction from him, she succeeds in digging out the shards.  There are three of them.  "We should save these," she says, dropping them onto the coffee table before pressing a gauze pad forcefully against the wound with her red-tinged fingertips.  "Hold that there.  Press hard."

He does, and they swap out the gauze a couple of times.  When the bleeding has slowed, she flushes the cut with saline wash, pads it dry, and daubs on some antibiotic ointment.  Then she pulls the cut together with two butterfly bandages before firmly taping a bigger bandage over the lot.  "Right, I think that's done it for now.  How does it feel?"

"Damned sore.  But the shrapnel's gone."  It's a marvellous release—he can't feel it grinding around inside him any more, an unwelcome intruder.  Such a little thing, to make such a big difference.  "Thank you."

"Hmm."  She keeps looking at the bandage as if inspecting it, but he wonders if she's also avoiding his gaze.  Her cheeks are red again.  "I need to wash my hands."

Seized by a reckless, foolish impulse—is there any other kind?—Bond catches her right hand in his own.  She inhales sharply.

"Only this one's a mess," he murmurs, and lifts it to his lips. 

This time, instead of come, he smells the metallic, sour edge of his own blood on her fingers.  It goes to his head just as strongly, and unable to help himself, he parts his mouth and sucks gently on two of her fingertips.   It hits him harder than alcohol ever could.  M.  Her flesh, soft and salty, for him to touch, to taste.         

His eyes fall shut.  At last.

Her hand trembles in his grip, but she makes no move to tug it free.  He's hardly breathing.  This is different from when he was dosed with the aphrodisiac, when his whole body thrummed with desire. Now everything breaks down to one single point of contact. 

He runs his tongue along the edge of her nails, feels their hard surface against his top lip, and the warm skin of her fingers against his bottom one.  His awareness of the world dissolves.  He cannot remember ever doing, or wanting, anything else.

"James," she whispers. 

Too much.  He wants her too much.  He can't bear it: his chest fills with heat, his ears ring, he's starting to shake.  He can't even open his eyes.  Caught in rapture that is as sudden as it is debilitating, he bestows one last kiss on her fingertips and pulls away with a groan.  He should not have done that.  It's the last thing he should ever have done, and he needs to let go of her hand right now. 

Just loosen the grip.  Just let her go.  If it was his left hand, it'd be easy, inevitable, he'd have lost her already—

Her hand flexes in his, squeezes it back.  He opens his eyes in time to see her bend her head, and then she presses her own mouth to his knuckles. 

M's lips are dry and soft, a locus of fire that sparks in his hand and spreads through his whole body in a feeling too intense and terrifying to be called pleasure.  His head spins while he watches her kiss him.  Her own eyes are shut, and while she doesn't look as lost as he feels, she looks…she looks…

He moans.  It's enough to make her drop his hand and look at him with wide, frightened eyes.  Whatever she sees in his face does not reassure her: her breathing quickens, and her mouth moves as if she's about to speak, but can't. 

He thinks of Michelakis, and knows that he lay dead in a gutter because he'd cared too much about his son.  He thinks of what it is like to live in a world that rewards only selfish cruelty, that punishes every gesture and semblance of love.  He knows, trembling deep in his core, that he's about to tell that world to go fuck itself in the only way he knows how.

There is no longer any reason not to.  There remains every reason not to.  They kiss anyway.

He remembers this.  Oh God, he remembers everything about this, the way it feels so good when their mouths slant across each other in precisely this way, the soft powdery taste of her lipstick, the way she breathes through her nose.  And the taste of gin, just good honest gin, no chemicals that can kill whatever's happening before it has a chance to begin.  He cups the back of her head with his right hand, rubbing the pad of his thumb behind her ear, holding her in place. 

He feels her hand, the hand he's just kissed, tracing gently over his cheek.  She'd done that before, too, but never like this, barely touching his skin.  It's as if she knows—he is not certain he could bear more—

And yet the kisses multiply, getting deeper and warmer, and yet his left arm hooks around her waist.  They told him he's back to 'normal functionality,' that he's regained so much strength, and somehow it doesn't feel like nearly enough if he is to keep her.  She is killing him inch by inch, this encounter is shredding him down to every nerve and bone, and he can't let her go.  She hurt him less with the knife. 

She pulls away from his mouth, striving for air.  He looks into the glazed eyes of someone who loves him. 

Defenceless, they stare at each other.  He reaches up with his right hand, feeling the stiff resistance of his new bandage, the sticky adherence of the tape to his flesh.  He touches her chin.

"Don't," she chokes, "look at me like…" 

Her voice trails off, but he obediently watches his own finger instead as it trails down her throat, pausing on the gold links of her necklace.  A flush has spread all over her skin.  He delicately traces the line of her clavicle, and a shudder rolls through her when he hits one particular spot, so he lingers there, stroking it over and over. 

She whimpers, and when he looks up at her face, she's closed her eyes again, and is biting her bottom lip as if she is in pain.

He doesn't know what to do.  For the first time since his first time, he's at a loss, because he wants everything from M.  Nothing they do tonight will be enough.  And now he knows to be afraid of that.  When sex cannot possibly be enough, no matter what two people do, no matter how naked or mutual or free it is, then it is time to be afraid. 

But none of that matters, because it won't stop him.  He leans forward and presses his face into the crook of her neck, inhaling deeply.  M is wearing her perfume again, the one that smells of iris.  She is also trembling.  Her hand drops to clutch at his left shoulder, newly healed, and her head tilts backwards.  He opens his mouth and dazedly begins to kiss his way downwards, across her throat to her collarbone.  He finds that spot again.  And he kisses it once, twice—she pants—he licks it, nips it with the tips of his teeth—

"Ah!  I should, I should," she gasps.  She pulls away enough to look at him.  "I should go."

He shakes his head, mouthing the word 'no,' too breathless to give it voice. 

"In a moment," she says brokenly, leaning in once more, still careful of his bandaged shoulder.  They kiss again, so hungry now, and he thinks that Michelakis was not wrong. 

But then M jerks away, harder this time.  She practically flings herself down the length of the sofa, where she reaches one hand out to fumble in her handbag and tug out her phone.  Before Bond can begin to get his wits about him, she's saying, while clutching at her necklace, "I'm ready for my car.  Bring it round."

Then she drops the phone back into her bag and rubs her forehead, looking down at her knees while she collects herself.  He can only watch her, still speechless, while he's sprawled at the other end of a sofa that suddenly seems uncommonly long.

She takes a deep breath, and when she meets his eyes again, her own are resolute.  "I need you to discover the truth of this," she says hoarsely.  "Before I'm pushed out and it's too late."

Bond smashes back to earth as surely as if he fell off another train.  He needs a moment to recover from the impact. 

Then he licks his lips and says, "So this is an official mission, then.  On the books?"

She shakes her head no.  Two months ago he'd said _I work for Six, not you,_ knowing that there was no difference.  Now…

"Just us, then," he says, narrowing his eyes. 

"Do you need me to say something cruel?" she asks.  "I can, if it will help."

"Believe me.  I am well aware," he grates.  He sits up with a grunt, and she rises to her feet.  "I'll do what needs doing."

It helps, saying the words.  He feels the pieces of him falling back into place, the ones that she scattered everywhere in atomising seconds. 

"I'm depending on it."  She slides her handbag strap over her shoulder.  Her face and throat are losing their blush.  Soon there will be no trace of him at all.  "I'll contact you tomorrow.  I'll collect everything I've got and pass it on to you.  Be ready to go."

"I can do that."  His blood's already burning from her touch; it doesn't take much to keep it hot for a new mission, one more shot at meaningful work.  God knows it might be his last.  "Where am I going?"

"Chongqing," she says, "for a start, at least."

Oh, the things he could say.  _I told you so_ would only be the beginning.  Instead he replies, "I'll wait to hear from you, then." 

"It won't be long.  Double-oh—" She catches herself and closes her eyes briefly.  "You should be ready for anything, Bond."

She needn't worry.  Her blow, accidental though it was, struck him in a place that has mercifully numbed itself until this is all over.  "When am I not?"

"I don't know.  I'd rather not find out the hard way."  Her phone buzzes in her purse, and she takes it out and nods.  "My car's here.  I have to go."

"Then good night, ma'am," he says. 

Her body tenses in a way that is almost, but not quite, a flinch.  She looks at him with wide eyes.  His heart rate hasn't slowed down one jot, and as she watches him, he takes a step forward, thinking that if she says the word, if she even tilts her head the right way, he won't let her leave this flat.  No matter their duty, or what comes tomorrow.  It'll be his turn to drive her mad, make her his, make her forget everything but what it feels like when he—

M actually seems to sway in place for a moment as they stare each other down.  She breathes, "Good night, James."

And then she is gone.

He exhales and his eyes fall shut.  His ears are still ringing.

After a moment, he looks at the closed door for a moment, and then down at his bandage, and then over at the first aid kit.  They made a bit of a mess.  Some water has slopped out of the basin.  The shrapnel lies in bloody pieces all over his coffee table.

And then there's his body, which aches and begs for what it won't get, and nothing else can substitute for that.  Not his own hand, not another woman's flesh, sometimes he thinks nothing's ever going to—but there was that _look_ in her eyes, when he'd known that she, too, was thinking—

The broken glass gets first priority.  Bond rubs his forehead with his left hand, his fingers steady so long as they don't have to hold anything of particular substance.  He can manage housekeeping just fine.

He goes to find the broom, the taste of blood and gin still lingering in his mouth.

 

* * *

 


	10. I Never Left

It's hard to pack for missions. Sometimes Bond doesn't even bother; too often he abandons things, leaving them behind in hotel rooms he doesn't dare return to once the job is done, or destroys them during the course of said job. Of course, all jobs are different. Some of them require planning ahead, the assumption of an entirely new identity for a temporary period of time, and supplies to match.

Bond's never taken many of those jobs. Some people would say he's not a proper spy—more of a very specialised hitman who occasionally plays at detective or thief. He can't really disagree. He doesn't mind, either. He always finds them unnerving, the chameleons, the ones who change names and languages and histories at the drop of a hat. How do they know who they are? If they survive into retirement, when they must be one person for the duration, whom do they choose?

Staring into his wardrobe, Bond sizes up the situation. He knows he'll likely begin in China, if M keeps to the plan, but there's no way to tell if he'll stay there, or for how long. And he's got no allies, no help. He won't get off the plane in Chongqing Airport and get picked up by a fellow agent, and while he's got Chinese friends and contacts of his own, their influence is largely limited to Beijing and Shanghai. The question of funds is also up in the air. M will probably find a way to funnel money to him—that is, she'd damned well better—but it'll be more under-the-table than usual, there will be less, and he will have to be prudent with whatever he gets, however he gets it.

And what's he up against? He's got a name to work with: Tiago Rodriguez. But names can mean nothing. He and M know that, and if Rodriguez is half the genius she seems to think, he knows it too. M had described Rodriguez as a sort of charming sociopath, as if that's anything unusual in this line of work. He cared, she'd said, for almost no one.

_Almost._ There is the key. A single word can make all the difference. Bond swallows harshly. Rodriguez, if this is he (she seems so bloody certain), chose to play a truly sick trick on M, using Bond as his instrument. Bond's spent the last…God, the last five months in a rage about the whole business. It's time to look at it from a different perspective. How might they turn it around, make it work for them?

A ploy like that, after fifteen years' absence, reeks of obsession. It's no casual prank, not when it's perpetrated on the head of MI6. M herself had used the word 'love,' had applied it to the man she'd known long ago. Bond has zero interest in Rodriguez's ill-fated love for his section head, but he might as well find a use for the twisted thing it's grown into. It could be a weakness, a major one. In fact, so far as Bond knows right this second, it might be the only one. He hopes that whatever information M gives him tomorrow will include a complete dossier so he can ferret out some more.

In the end, he decides that travelling light is, as ever, preferable to the alternative, and so he packs only a small bag with a few things. A fresh passport, some money, and a gun, that's all he ever really needs. He intends to do this swiftly.

Bond turns off the lights and gets into bed. It's half-past one in the morning. He knows he needs his rest, now more than ever. This mission is dangerous, not just because he's damaged goods, but because it's more personal than it's ever been before. And come what may, he'd like to think he's learned from his past mistakes—at least enough to know that he can be as great a threat to himself as any enemy.

It is personal. He can't pretend it isn't. But he doesn't have to let it master him. For example, if he allows himself to think about M, and her kisses, and the look in her eyes, then he might fuck this up before it even starts, so he won't be allowing himself to do that.

He's got her love. He's got a mission. Those two elements alone have just improved his life by roughly one hundred percent. They are enough.

So he rests his hands on his stomach, feeling a faint ache in both shoulders. Looking up at the shadowed stain on his ceiling, the one left by a dead man, he analyses the situation as objectively as possible.

He's going into this wounded. He'll have no official support or protection. He knows next to nothing about what he'll face, save that he will almost certainly be outnumbered and outgunned.

Bond grins in the darkness.

It's as if Christmas is here early.

* * *

There's no use setting an alarm since he cannot plan his day, so the bleeping of his phone wakes him. She's texted him. _11.30 Vauxhall CPE._

CPE? Ah, Car Park E. Underground, secret, reserved for the higher-ups. The groundlings aren't meant to know it exists, and a code is required to get in. No CCTV. So she wants this close to home, no meeting in cocktail bars or anybody's flat, but she also wants to fly under the radar. He wonders if Tanner will be there, if she'll decide to trust him, too. Probably not; she will want to protect him, especially if he's first in line for her job.

Doesn't seem terribly likely, though. Tanner isn't M material. Gifted and conscientious though he is, he's a right hand, not a brain. Bond hopes he doesn't entertain ambitions of any kind.

It's just before ten o'clock. Bond's already packed, as well as put the shrapnel shards in a plastic bag. It'll take him forty-five minutes in normal traffic; he'll allow for fifty-five. He has a beautiful car that he rarely drives, and he won't drive it today either, since he doesn't know how long it would be hanging about Car Park E, drawing questions from people who shouldn't ask. He checks his bandage and sees that M's small cut has healed over. He showers, taking care that it doesn't open again, and dresses in his favourite suit. Even if his career's gone up in smoke and he's off on a hare-brained crusade, there's no reason to let his standards slip.

Right. It's time. Bond shoulders his pack, grabs the plastic bag, casts one final glance around his flat, and locks the door behind him. On his way to the ground floor he munches a nutrient bar and wishes he had time to stop for coffee, but it's probably better for his psyche if he doesn't make his way across London looking like a businessman who's drinking his morning Starbucks.

Besides, he's wide awake. And rather on edge. Last night's excitement has undergone the usual transformation into readiness, a cold awareness that danger awaits him and he must be prepared to meet it at any moment. He's missed it like mad.

As before, he hails a cab, and exits a couple of streets away from Vauxhall. He strolls to the west side of the building, where he finds an inconspicuous door that's all but hidden by a row of well-trimmed hedges. It's the only way to get into Car Park E without going through the building, and even here, he is required to input his personal code in order to open it. That means that anyone will have a record of his visit, if they care to look; but of course, all M has to do is say _Oh, it's bloody Bond up to his tricks again_ with that exasperated note in her voice, and they'll all roll their eyes and go back to work.

He descends the stairs. It's 11.20 by the time he reaches the car park. Nobody's around. He notes, with some surprise, that the parking space reserved for M's Jaguar is empty. And by the time 11.28 rolls around, and the space remains empty, he is starting to become genuinely annoyed.

He's just about to call her when he hears the rumble of a car. He steps discreetly out of view, but it is the Jaguar, and he can see her clearly in the back seat, peering through her window with a faint frown on her face. As usual, the driver gets out to open the door for her—she is alone—and as usual, she beats him to it, exiting the car as if he's not there and looking about impatiently.

Bond steps into view. When she glances back his way, she gives a little twitch of surprise, and even closes her eyes in irritation. He smirks. At least the day's off to a good start.

"Wait here," M says to her driver, who nods respectfully and remains by the car as she approaches Bond. She's carrying a briefcase. "Bloody traffic, and then he had to miss a light. I'm off again to a meeting in a few minutes. Here are your tickets, your passport and documentation, and all the information I could gather on Rodriguez without attracting attention." She opens the briefcase and passes him a thick white envelope, and then a tablet computer, small enough to fit comfortably inside his bag. "I bought the tablet myself, in cash. It is unconnected to any data network. Make sure it stays that way. Destroy it before you touch down in China."

"Of course. What's the login?"

She tells him a series of randomised numbers, letters, and symbols, which he repeats both forwards and backwards three times before she is satisfied. Then she says, "Your flight leaves in six hours." Bond nods. That'll be more than enough time for him to memorise his cover and get started on Rodriguez. "I have one more thing for you." She reaches into the briefcase and pulls out a silver mobile phone. It's a clamshell, the sort he hasn't used in years, with no internet or data capability. "Use this to contact me, and me alone. I also have one that's solely dedicated to you. I've programmed the number into yours."

He nods again and slips it into his bag. Then he says, "One thing I should probably ask: when I find this man, what do I do with him?"

"Bring him in," she says promptly. "Get in touch with me when you've apprehended him, and I'll arrange for you to have some sort of discreet local help in getting him to a secure location. That'll all depend on where you find him, of course."

"Of course." Naturally she'd prefer live prey. "Not that I want to be a pessimist, mind you, but if worse comes to worst…"

She inhales through her nose and shakes her head. "I may not be able to help you, Bond. Don't count on—"

"I know that," he says impatiently. "I was just going to ask, if it's all I can manage to do, how much of a pain in the arse will it be if I kill him?"

Her breath catches, and for a moment, last night's look flares in her eyes—equal parts affection and longing. It takes his breath away, and he wishes it hadn't happened, because he needs a nobler reason to survive than this.

"Do what you have to do," she says, clearing her throat, "and do your utmost."

"Always," he replies. Her cheeks are actually pink. Bond glances towards her driver, who is looking at his watch. "I think our chaperone is waiting on you."

"Our—!" She stops, and growls, "Goodbye, Bond. Happy hunting." Then she turns to go.

"One more thing," he says. She pauses and glances over her shoulder, a cautious look on her face. "Just tell me already, before I go, who the devil is our new quartermaster?"

She raises her eyebrows. Then she bites her bottom lip right before her mouth widens into a genuine, mischievous smile he has never seen before. He loses his breath again. She chuckles, and says, "I might as well tell you. You'll never guess."

But then, before she can continue, a booming roar drowns her out. It comes from above. A tremor rattles the walls, and small chunks of plaster and concrete fall from the ceiling, raining to the floor in dusty clouds.

Bond's grabbed M by the waist before the noise even fades, and is rushing her towards the stairway that leads up to the street. Something up above has just blown sky-high. It must be fairly elevated not to have disturbed the underground car park much (the top floors, the main office?).

There might have been a gas leak, it could just as easily be a bomb, and it could happen again any moment. They've got to get out of here. He hears a cry of "Ma'am!" coming from M's driver, and turns to see him scurrying after them, wide-eyed.

"Come on!" Bond shouts at him. "Move!"

"What the hell was that?" M gasps.

"Just move. Just move," he says, hustling her along even as a uniformed security officer rushes out from behind a corner, nearly knocking them down. He's saying into a transceiver, "Fuck's sake, what was that? Yeah, I'm in the secure park right now—excuse me, sir, ma'am, I need you both to—"

"Get the hell out of the," Bond says, and that's when he feels the needle stab painfully into the back of his neck.

He snarls, lets go of M, whirls, and throws his right fist as hard as he can at her driver. The driver, a trained combatant in his own right, drops the syringe and ducks backwards. He dodges the first blow, but Bond lands the second one on his temple. The problem is, it's with his left fist, so it's not a killing blow, or even a knockout one. The driver staggers backwards, and behind him, Bond hears M cry out.

He doesn't dare look away from his opponent. Wild with rage, he draws his gun and aims, steadying it with both hands, but that doesn't help. All of a sudden, he's seeing double and his head is swimming. He stumbles. Oh fuck, what was in that syringe, it's hitting him for six within seconds—

The driver lashes out and strikes him hard across the face. Bond spins around like a drunk, the Walther falling from his tingling hands. He sees M, who stands pressed against the wall while the security guard trains a gun on her. She's fading in and out of focus, but for a moment he can see, quite clearly, her look of horror and despair.

Bond collapses to his knees. "…wants them both alive," he dimly hears the security guard say. "Said especially…" Bond sways. He can't lift his arms—he can't keep his eyes open— "…his regards to you, ma'am..."

M closes her own eyes. That's the last thing Bond sees as his body finishes its collapse, going boneless and helpless. And the last thing he thinks, before the world turns black, is that he and M really hadn't needed to go to all that trouble.

Tiago Rodriguez has come to them.

**FIN.**

* * *

 

James Bond will return in the final "Faith and Doubt" story: _Resurrection._


End file.
